Professional Documents
Culture Documents
LONDON:
1814.
TO
THE HONOURABLE
THE COURT IF DIRECTORS
OF
THE EAST INDIA COMPANY,
Chese Cracts,
WHICH ARE THE RESULT OF OBSERVATIONS AND RESEARCHES
MADE WHILE FULFILLING THE OFFICIAL DUTIES OF HIS SITUATION,
ARE,
WITH ALL DUE DEFERENCE AND RESPECT,
INSCRIBED
BY THEIR FAITHFUL AND OBEDIENT SERVANT,
BENJAMIN HEYNE.
PREFACE
THE greater number of the Tracts which constitute this volume, were written during the
earlier part of a residence of about twenty years in India: some of them have been
published, but without my knowledge, and without receiving the necessary correction;
others, which had been laid before the Government of Fort St. George and forwarded to
the Honourable the Court of Directors, were deposited in their library; the rest, as some
journals, letters, and translations, had been communicated to private friends only: none
were thought by me of sufficient importance to lay before the world. To ascertain,
however, whether they contained any information worth preserving, I submitted them to
several of my friends, and ultimately to Dr. Thomas Thomson, for whose advice in
selection, and assistance in revising the Ms. For the press, I am very deeply indebted. To
Dr.Wilkins I feel very grateful for his support in recommending to the Honourable Court
of Directors to permit those papers to be published which had come officially before them.
Owing to circumstances, which it is immaterial to state, I have not been able to arrange the
Tracts either according to the succession in which they were written, or to the connexion of
their subjects. In all, I have given my opinion very honestly, which, when it differs from
the established notions, or the ideas of celebrated writers on the same subject, I trust will
not be imputed to idle or impertinent presumption.
Throughout the work, except in particular instances, I have used the manner of spelling
Indian words as adopted in the Asiatick Researches, for which the general rules are – that
all vowels are sounded like those in the Italian language; that they are pronounced short,
or are lengthened by a line – over them, as ā, ē, ī, ō, ū; that the consonants are sounded as
in English; the letter y in the middle of words as an English i, in the beginning as usual in
English, and at the termination of a word as an English e. Words which are in general use,
and have been adopted in the English language, I have spelled according to the common
usage, as, Hindoo, Cooly, Palankeen; likewise most names of places of note; as otherwise it
would have become necessary to write them as they are pronounced by the natives, which
would in most instances have rendered them perfectly unintelligible to every body in
Europe: as, thus it would have been, Chamerlacotta for Samulcotta, Striringapatam for
Serengapatam, Tiruchināpaly for Trichinopoly, Rajamahendram for Rajamundry. In the
maps I have throughout used the common way of specifying the names of places and
districts.
I could have wished to be more particular in mineralogical and geological descriptions, but
found myself so often at a loss for want of specimens to refer to, that I have seldom
attempted it, and in general omitted all such as I conceived would not be found perfectly
correct. I must lament here the loss of large collections, which I was obliged, during the
latter years of my residence in India, to leave behind me at different places, from want of
means to carry them with me in the country, or of sending them dto a place of safety. The
diamond in the rock, or matrix, if it may be so called, I found at Banaganpilly; the Right
Honourable the Countess of Powis did me the honour to receive it among her valuable
collection of Indian minerals, and now to permit me to represent it by a plate.
The botanical names that occur in these Tracts will be found correct, as they have been
taken mostly from Dr. Roxburgh’s manuscripts, or on the authority of my most respected
friend the Rev. Dr. Rottler: most of the plants I have seen and examined myself.
It was thought advisable to publish the Meteorological Tables in the Appendix; as few of
the kind yet exist which have been taken even with so much accuracy as these possess. The
completest copy of it, which contains, besides other periods, one of a year and a half of my
stay at Cuddapa, has been either mislaid at the packing of my things in India, or is among
some parcels which have not yet come to hand.
My observations on mere scientific subjects I have neither found leisure nor means, during
my stay in England, to elaborate in such a manner, as to venture on laying them before the
public; but as I have yet several years to reside in India, I shall, if God grant me life and
health, and my Honourable Masters continue their patronage, have an opportunity of
increasing them, and afterwards of rendering them more deserving of notice. I have in the
mean time not been sparing in communicating my specimens to such as will be able to
make them useful; and this, on the whole, was and is the primary object. It matters but
little whether it be known by whom a thing is collected, provided it only be used for the
good of the community. Many of my friends seem to be of the same opinion!
During my former residence in India I have met with some obstacles in my pursuit,
particularly in latter times; but in general I gratefully acknowledge having experienced the
greatest encouragement. The Government of Fort St. George, and its Governors, the
Right Hon. The Earl of Buckinghamshire, Earl of Powis, and Lord W. Bentinck, have most
graciously patronised my pursuits: many gentlemen in the Civil and Medical Service, as
Mr. W. Petrie, Mr. T. Cockburn, Dr. W. Roxburgh, Dr. J. Anderson, and others, have
generously supported; and individuals, among whom I name the late Mr. Andrew Ross
with sentiments of the liveliest gratitude, have most kindly encouraged me. Delicacy
forbids me to say more of those who are yet alive. May God still preserve them long in
health and happiness.
London, June 20, 1814.
TRACTS,
HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL,
ON
INDIA.
TRACT I.
STATISTICAL FRAGMENTS ON THE CARNATIC.
WHAT is at present called the Carnatic consists of a tract of land extending along the
peninsula of Hindostan, lately the territory of the Nabob of Arcot, from north latitude 150 to
about 100. Its present capital is Madras, well known as the seat of a British governor, and
remarkable for the celebrated struggle between the British and French nations, which was
terminated by the peace of 1763, and which laid the foundation of the British dominions in India.
A residence of nearly twenty years in that country or its neighbourhood having afforded me
abundance of opportunity of making myself acquainted with it. I might easily describe it at great
length. But as this has been already repeatedly done by others, I shall satisfy myself, in this
Essay, with a few statistical remarks, which may not perhaps be without their utility.
I. SOIL.
The soil of that part of the Carnatic which lies nearest the sea is a mixture of loam and
sea sand, sparingly intermixed with the remains of marine animals, and bears evident marks of
having been formerly covered by the sea. It is affirmed in the Pooranas, and has been handed
down by tradition, that great part of the Coromandel coast was suddenly elevated out of the sea;
but the appearance of the low land renders it evident that this tradition cannot be correct. The
land must have been formed gradually, and must have elevated itself above the sea precisely in
the same way as the marsches on the coast of Sleswigh, Holstein, &c. The inland regions of this
part of India contain mountains of sienite, with a very small proportion of felspar. The fragments
of these mountains, washed by the torrents into the sea, constitute the sand of this coast; and the
small proportion of felspar in these rocks probably occasions the badness of the soil; at least it
accounts for the want of the proper admixture of clay, and for the super-abundance of iron.
I consider the whole soil of this part of the Carnatic to be composed of the debris of the
decomposed sienitie mountains. According to local circumstances it is either a loam mixed with
sand and gravel, and strongly impregnated with iron, or in low and wet places a stiff red loam
mixed with vegetable earth and fine sand, or in eminences gravel and sand. And it is often so
much impregnated with common salt, that it presents a saline efforescence in dry weather.
Near Madras it is a heavy, sterile, salt loam, mixed with silicious sand; and along the sea-
coast, and for some miles inwards, we meet at certain depths with marine productions, such as
cockle and oyster shells, indicating, as before observed, that this part of the country consists of
land recovered from the sea.
By some the soil near Madras has been thought vitriolic or aluminous at a certain depth,
in consequence of the efforescence that forms on it when it is exposed to the air. But the taste of
this saline substance announces it to be common salt.
An exact determination how far inland this saline soil extends is an important subject of
inquiry; because the success of plantations of trees that strike deep roots into the ground depends
upon it. For trees will not thrive in the saline soil, as has been often experienced in the
neighbourhood of Madras. From the appearances of the country I conceive, that the saline soil
does not extend farther than the mount called Little St Thomas, and that on the west side of this
spot gardening and planting may be prosecuted with success.
Between Mount St. Thomas and Vellore the soil is sandy, and nearly as poor as in the
neighbourhood of Madras; but it is not poisoned by the saline impregnation. In the valleys,
which are watered by tanks and rivers, it is more fertile than on the barren downs, which form a
range of low hills parallel to the coast. I may mention, as examples, the Conjeveram valley, and
the villages Damerla, Samindenghy, and others which are watered by branches of the Polar.
About Conjeveram the soil is more clayey, owing to the decomposition of the felspar which
abounds in the granite of that region: it is scarcely necessary to observe, that the high ground,
such as those in the neighbourhood of Arcot, are always poorer than the contiguous valleys,
because the finest particles of the soil are gradually washed away by the rains, and deposited in
the valleys.
Here and there in the inland parts of the country, we find large spots of salt ground,
containing either common salt, or a mixture of that salt and soda, which, from the use to which it
is applied in India, is known by the name of washermen’s earth. The fertile soil called black
cotton ground, I have observed only in one place, namely, Kuckalom, where cotton was sown
together with jonnaloo, or the holcus sorghum of botanists.
In the valleys along the Ghauts, and between the ranges of hills between Vellore and
Peddanaikdoorgum, the soil is chiefly loamy, mixed with sand, and with a considerable
proportion of vegetable mould which gives it the dark shade of brown by which it is
distinguished. Near the hills it is often stony, but not so much so as I have observed it in other
parts of the country, where the rock, constituting the neighbouring mountains, is not so liable to
decomposition as the sienite of the Carnatic.
The vegetable admixture and loaminess are to be ascribed to the great quantity of water
with which it is inundated for a very great part of the year. Rice, or paddy, as it is called in India,
is the principal produce, and on that account the inhabitants are at great pains to inundate their
fields from the neighbouring rivers and tanks which abound in the country.
II. WATER.
The water all over the peninsula of Indostan is upon the whole pretty good. In rivers it is
best after rain; tanks, though muddy, being composed of rain water, are usually sweet. The water
in wells is often a little brackish, owing to a mixture of some common salt or muriate of lime;
for these are the only saline bodies that I have found by analysis in the waters at Madras and
other places. Mineral waters, as far as I know, do not occur on the coast: indeed I have heard of
only one hot spring in the peninsula; it is situated in the middle of the Godavery, near
Badrachellum, about one hundred miles west from Rajahmundry. Springs issuing from the
surface of the ground are almost as scarce as mineral waters; they occur only on the tops of high
mountains, as on all hill forts: the water which they yield is usually excellent.
If we dig almost any where, veins of water may be found proceeding from the high land
and the Ghauts, which run all along the peninsula. The depth at which these veins occur is
various: I have observed, that in some valleys near the mountains they are more superficial. In
the Polnaud, for example, near Samulcotah, they occur at the depth of four or five feet below the
surface; along the Carnatic Ghauts they are deeper, owing, I think, to the elevation of the
respective countries between them and the sea; for the valleys in the Cirears are nearly on a level
with the sea shore. The intervening country is considerably elevated, while the lower parts of the
Carnatic valleys are a good deal higher than the coast. It is in consequence of the intermediate
high ground between the valley and the coast in the Masulipatam circar, that the Godavery
cannot be applied to any use in watering the countries through which it flows, while the rivers in
the Carnatic are of immense use in this respect.
I can speak with confidence of the Godavery, as the bed of that river has been leveled by
Mr. Topping as far as its entrance into the low country, and has been found not above a foot
higher than at the place where it disembogues itself into the sea; and as I have lived for many
years either upon its banks or on the very high ground that intervenes between the valley of the
Ghauts and the coast.
The goodness of water depends, in a great measure, on the nature of the strata through
which it runs. I f these strata be impregnated with common salt, or any other similar substance,
we may expect to find the water brackish: a calcareous or gypseous soil will produce hard water,
because a portion of the calcareous salts will be dissolved by the liquid. In clayey soil the water
will be muddy, but generally soft and good, unless the clay happen to contain a mixture of iron
or martial pyrites: in primitive tracts of country the water is always transparent and good.
The culture is the same as in the last described district, except in the country where the
stratified hills occur. On the black soil jonnaloo and cotton are the principal crops; while on the
red soil raghie flourishes best. The underwood on the uncultivated land, which is very extensive,
consists chiefly of the prickly mimosas, cassia auriculata, &c.
The soil often contains common salt, and on that account is favourable to the growth of
cocoa-nut trees, of which there are very large plantations in the valleys.
Having passed the Chittledroog ranges of hills, we descend into an extensive and
variegated valley which leads towards the river Tumbudra. Both the eastern and western
boundaries of this valley are at a great distance, though they may be observed at times. The low
country is variously intersected with floetz mountains and ridges that seem to be connected with
or to bear on one or other of the principal ranges. Some of these are high, and all contain in their
rocks much iron and magnesia. The narrow valleys between them have a fine rich soil, which is
seldom of the kind called cotton soil, but red and loamy, as it is brought by the rain water from
the hills, which are much given to decomposition.
The hills are clad with a fine verdure, and the trees grow on them to a pretty large size,
particularly the sandal tree. Grass also seems to be in abundance. North of Mayacondah, a place
about half way between Chittledroog and the river, the country becomes long waving. We see
here and there single hills or short ranges. The former are mostly sienitic, or granitic, the latter
slaty. The nearer we come to the river the more the cotton soil and marl abound. The river is
constantly accompanied by ranges of hills. The farthest west of these which I have seen are
those of Buswapatam, through which the river winds. They consist of several ranges of
mountains. The southernmost is composed of a striped siliceous slate, but those towards the
center consist of clay slate. The soil along the river is mostly black cotton soil, and below it are
beds of mica slate.
Hurryhurr is one of the principal places in this part of the country. It lies on the banks of
the Tumbudra, is about 1831 feet above the level of Madras, and is probably the lowest point of
the whole Mysore. The perpendicular height of the hills here does not exceed four or five
hundred feet.
In all these countries the natives distinguish, in their revenue accounts, eight different
kinds of soil, for which different productions are particularized. The names of these soils in the
Canary language, together with the meaning of the terms, are as follows:
1. Yara, black cotton ground, quite free from stones.
2. Kara, the same, but stony.
3. Kengala, kempu, red soil mixed with loam and vegetable mould.
4. Morallu, molalu, sandy soil.
5. Kallu, murbu, stony and gravelly soil.
6. Bîla, carlu, white stiff loam.
7. Maska, masbu, cabbou, garden soil.
8. Sondu, salt ground.
The productions of these soils will be best seen in the following table. It may be proper
to notice that the general division of the country into low and high ground has not been attended
to, because the productions of the former are exclusively rice and sugar. Hence wherever such
productions are specified they indicate at the same time the situation of the ground on which they
are produced. Every other species of grain is the production of high grounds, or of places that
cannot be watered. Wheat is chiefly cultivated in the beds of tanks after their water has been
expended in irrigating the rice and sugar fields.
TABLE
The names of the grain on the table are according to the Telinga language. The following
table exhibits the Linnǽan names of these vegetable substances respectively:
Dhaniam…………… Oryza sativa.
Chollu……………… Eleusine corrocana.
Ganta………………. Holcus spicatus.
Korra………………. Panicum italicum, millet.
Jonna……………….. Holcus sorghum.
Chama……………… Panicum meliacium.
Goduma……………. Triticum aristatum, wheat.
Aruga………………. Paspalum frumentaceum.
Warga……………….Panicum pilosum.
Kanda………………. Cytisus cajan, red gram.
Wulawa…………….. Glycine tomentosa, horse gram.
Anuma………………Dolichos spicatus, cow gram.
Pessara ………………Phaseolus mungo, green gram.
Sennaga……………...Cicer arietinum, chick pea.
Amda………………..Ricinus communis, castor oil.
Nuwa……………….. Sesamum orientale, gingelie oil seed.
Werrynuwa………… Anthemis? Oil seed.
Minuma……………. Phaseolus minimus, black gram.
Bobara……………… Dolichos catianus.
Alsanda…………….. Dolichos sinensis.
Pratty……………….. Gossypium herbaceum, cotton.
Cherruku…………….Saccharum officinale, sugar cane.
XII. RIVERS, TANKS, &c.
The largest river in that part of the Mysore of which we have been speaking is the
Tumbudra, which may be considered as bounding the country on the north. It comes from the
western Ghauts, taking an easterly direction, and to judge from its rapidity and from the depth of
the channel which it has cut, it must have a great fall. It receives its waters from rivulets and
torrents which, during the rainy season, precipitate themselves in every direction from the hills.
It proceeds from the western Ghauts in two distinct streams, called the Tunga and the Budra.
These unite not far from Hurryhurr, and then the name of the river is constituted by joining
together the two names which distinguished its two branches. From Hurryhurr it runs in a north-
easterly direction, and at no great distance disembogues itself into the Kistnah.
As the Tumbudra has cut a deep channel for itself, and is every where surrounded by
steep banks, it is quite useless for the purposes of irrigation. During the hottest months very fine
musk melons and some other vegetables are raised in its beds.
The wood which grows on the western Ghauts might be readily floated on this river to the
coast. It might serve also to convey the products of the Mysore in flat-bottomed boats to the
British dominions near the sea.
The only boats at present in use are round baskets covered with buffalo skins. They hold
about fifteen men, and, notwithstanding their wretched appearance, have been employed to
convey armies and even artillery across the river. The natives often cross the river upon cutchery
pots (earthen pots with a narrow mouth), on which they support themselves, and in which they
keep their clothes dry.
The smaller rivulets are of more consequence to the farmer, as they convey water into the
tanks, without the aid of which the low grounds would yield little of nothing. This water, when it
happens to rise from springs, is often brackish in the summer season; yet it answers the purposes
of cultivation, and is often drawn laboriously by means of pacotas to water rice and sugar fields.
In the rainy season the water of the rivers is usually of a deep red from the quantity of clay,
tinged with iron, which it holds in suspension. It is generally sweet, being in fact rain water, and
is considered by the natives as peculiarly palatable, and even preferred by them to the waters of
the Ganges.
In the southern parts of the Mysore the largest river is the Cavery. It receives several
small rivers from the northern parts of the Mysore; two of which, the Arkawatty and
Dachanapinnāky, run almost the whole length of the country, rising from the Nundydrug hill, in
the north, and flowing into the Cāvery nearly at the southern extremity of the district. These
rivers during the rainy season are very rapid and difficult to cross.
There are no lakes in the northern parts of the Mysore; but abundance of tanks or
artificial reservoirs in the higher grounds. In the low valleys, where the black cotton soil
predominates, there are very few. These tanks receive the water from the neighbouring high
grounds, and are employed to water the rice and sugar fields. They are frequently surrounded by
stone walls or facings, and are furnished with regular sluices to let out the water.
I conceive that the ground now occupied by tanks might be husbanded much better, by
taking advantage of higher and favourable situations, so that many of the spots now covered with
water might be cultivated.
The water in these tanks being rain water is always sweet, and though muddy, is
preferred by the natives to well water, which is limpid but often brackish. The matter which the
water deposites in the bottom of the tank forms a rich soil, upon which fine crops of wheat are
sometimes raised after the whole of the water has been employed.
With the natives of India I am much inclined to ascribe to water a number of disorders
with which they are afflicted, as intermittent fevers, obstructions kin the viscera, and all the
multitude of diseases that proceed from this latter cause. I have observed that in those parts of
India where the soil is black and calcareous these disorders are general and endemical; I have
observed also that those who drink water brought by the rivers in the rainy season are subject at
that time to fevers and agues. The precaution used by some officers of my acquaintance of
boiling their water, and insisting on those under their command using the same precaution, has
kept whole detachments in good health in countries considered as peculiarly injurious to those
who are obliged to live in them.
The natives of India have a very simple mode of rendering turbid water drinkable. They
rub a little alum or induga (the seed of strychnos potatorum) on the sides of a pot, and then
pouring the water into it let it remain at rest for a little time. The earthy matter is immediately
precipitated, and the water becomes clear and limpid.
XIII.MOUNTAINS AND MINERALS.
Very little can be added to the general description of the country already given. The
principal range of mountains is abruptly rising and falling. Distant points appear often as
separated from each other by great efforts of nature. The intervening chasm is frequently eight
or ten miles long, and very little elevated above the low country.
The western range of hills in the district of Bengalore run so interruptedly that, when
among them, we fancy they have no particular direction or arrangement. In the country between
the two north and south ranges, which may be called flat or plain, single hills or even whole
clusters of them occur of the same nature and appearance as the principal chains. The greatest
number of these hills occur near Colar. All these hills abound with underwood and trees, few of
which, however, grow to any considerable size. The soil on them is mostly a fine black vegetable
mould, very fertile, but not sufficiently deep to afford nourishment for large trees. Springs of
excellent water are to be found on most of them. Their surface is usually covered with stones of
different sizes, which render the ascent very difficult. They never contain any metallic ores so
far as I know, except ores of iron.
Almost all the hills about Bengalore are sienitic; but, to the south east of Ooscotah, a
place between Bengalore and Colar, there occur hills composed of a soft, ferruginous, clay slate.
They are low, flat at their tops, and mostly barren. The soil about them is a fine argillaceous red
earth. Gold is found in small quantities near these hills, either mixed with the soil, or
interspersed in quartzy stones.
Near Sîrah the hills seem to be all of secondary formation. They run in straight lines, in
various directions; are quite bare of trees; but, in the wet season, have a green appearance, from
the long-hill grass (anthistiria barbata), which is almost the only vegetable that grows on them.
These hills are almost constantly covered at top with a kind of magnetic ironstone, which
withstands the decomposing powers of the air and water much longer than the lower parts of the
hills, which seem to be composed of ferruginous slate clay.
The lower ridges, north and west of Chittledroog, consist of a compound din which
chlorite, oxide of iron, and sometimes hornblende prevail. They often form basins of
considerable size, which have a very fertile soil. Many of them are naked; but some of them are
covered with fine grass, and produce trees of a middling size, of which the sandal is the most
remarkable
Having given an idea of the nature of the various mountains which occur in this part of
India, I shall now attempt to describe the different minerals which I met with while traversing it
in all directions.
1. The great rock, which in fact constitutes the basis of the whole country is a kind of
sienite, composed for the most part of four different ingredients; namely, quartz, felspar,
hornblende, and mica. The quartz has usually a dull grayish white colour; and veins of it, from
four to ten inches thick often traverse the rock in different directions. The felspar varies in
colour, from a silver white to a deep brick red, and is the most copious constituent of the rock.
The hornblende is black, very abundant, and very much given to decomposition. The mica is
easily distinguished from the hornblende, even when the stone is nearly in a state of
disintegration: the hornblende, in that state, has assumed a brown ochre colour, and has lost all
luster and cohesion; while the mica retains both its colour, luster, and cohesion to the last, and
becomes only more apparent by the progress of disintegration. This is particularly exemplified
in the Mysore country, where the waving high ground consists of sienite decomposed into pipe-
clay, intermixed with micaceous shining particles, and grains of quartz.
The inland range of the Ghauts is composed of sienite as well as the eastern Ghauts, with
this difference, that the felspar is of a beautiful brick red colour, and the predominating
ingredient. Mica also abounds in some of the hills. I have seen specimens of mica slate, from
mountains situated on the west side of Bengalore; but have never seen any such rock in the
eastern range.
The kind of rock just described, which is a very handsome stone, continues to Nidgcul;
but, in the range that crosses the country, or which Nundydroog is the principal hill, it becomes
intermediate between the sienite of the eastern and inland ranges. The felspar is more red, and
the mica more conspicuous than in the eastern Ghauts; but not so beautiful as at Sîwaganga and
Sewendroog.
The ranges of hills to which Chittledroog belongs are exactly of the same composition.
In some places the felspar is of a fine red, in others of a silvery white colour.
When this rock begins to decompose, it assumes a slaty form, the layers of which are
pretty thick; but as the disintegration advances, it scales off in thin laminæ, which are very
brittle; and in them the mica is more apparent than in the fresh rock.
This rock is every where given to decomposition, probably on account of the great
proportion of iron which it contains; and this decomposition is much farther advanced in the
lower than in the higher parts of the mountains. On the summits of the hills the soundest stones
are always found, because every thing that has been loosened by decomposition is washed down
by the monsoon rains. In the lowest part of the country, usually at some depth below the surface,
the same sienitic rock occurs, almost always decomposed, and without cohesion or colour. The
felspar is commonly converted into pipe-clay; the hornblende is either entirely gone or changed
into ochre; the mica still brilliant, and the quartz entire.
2. Granite (a compound of quartz, felspar, and mica), is chiefly observed in the low
country, where the black soil prevails, almost always in a state of decomposition, and very
friable. The felspar is usually large, rhomboidal, silvery, or milk white; often so sort as to verge
upon the state of pipe-clay. The mica is in thin plates, little affected by decomposition, of a
grayish white colour, and often in large pieces.
In these two rocks, besides the constituents already mentioned, we frequently observe the
following minerals:
3. Garnets, In many hills they constitute an integral part of the sienitic compound; but
more in the lower than the higher parts of the country. Garnets occur very frequently in the
mountains of the Lower Ghauts; but I have not, or very seldom, seen them in the Mysore.
4. Diamond spar. The same observations apply to this mineral as to garnet.
5. Pistazite*, a mineral of a yellowish green colour, sometimes in confused, slender,
needle-like crystals; oftener compact, in dots, and overlying the sienite in small stripes. Its
hardness is that of quartz, which it resembles much in appearance and fracture. I consider it as
merely quartz, coloured with green earth; a substance that occurs in India, as I have seen
specimens of it from the Dekan.
6. Granatite of Werner. This mineral I have found in the southern parts of the Mysore.
7. Chlorite slate. This mineral forms the constituent of the hills near Sîrah. It is of a
greenish blue colour, with yellowish ochrey spots; luster silky; longitudinal fracture fibrous; very
soft. Cubic crystals of brown iron stone occur in it, from two lines in diameter to one inch.
When this mineral is decomposed it becomes quite brittle, red, and ochrey, and stains the fingers.
Iron-shot quartz is often found massive in it.
8. Clay iron stone constitutes some ranges of hills near Chittledroog, and the hills north
of Hurryhurr.
9. Drawing slate, found in different parts of the country about Chittledroog.
10. Schorl, in quartz, near Hurryhurr.
11. Mica slate, occurs often below the beds of marl in countries where the black cotton
soil prevails.
12. Flinty slate, with alternate stripes of a red and grey colour. It forms the cover of most
hills here. Magnetic iron stone occurs in it in nests.
13. Bluish black quartz.
14. Pot stone and actinolite occur frequently in nests near Matod. It has a considerable
admixture of iron; for when it decomposes it becomes quite red.
15. Asbestoid, found in the pot stone near Talem
16. Ligniform asbestos, among the Mayacondah hills.
17. Lamellar actinolite, at Hurryhurr.
18. Brown spar. A mineral which I consider as belonging to this species occurs near
Talem and Annaji.
19. Captain Warren, formerly an assistant in the Mysore survey, has lately discovered
that gold was found and extracted from earth and stones by the natives near Betamungalum. By
all accounts it was extracted by washing from the alluvial soil; but its quantity was too small to
repay the labour of searching for it.
20. Iron-glance is found among the Chittledroog hi8lls, near Talem and other places. It is
employed in the glass works at Matod. That mineralogists may have it in their power to
determine whether I have named this mineral right, I shall here give a short description of it. Its
external colour is brown ochrey, internally it is black. Externally its luster is dull, internally
shining and semi-metallic. Fracture even, inclining to the small granular foliated. Hardness,
equal to that of felspar. Specific gravity, 4.95. Streak, red. Its powder is brown. It decomposes
into red ochre, which is often found on the fracture when a stone is broken; It occurs in ochrey
pieces, coated with an ochrey crust, which feels smooth. It is attracted by the magnet; but not
strongly. Large pieces of it show polarity. When heated in a crucible or on charcoal it follows
the magnet like iron-filings. To try whether it contained any manganese, I heated a mixture of
equal parts of its powder and potash to whiteness. The greatest part of it was scarified black, and
a few particles appeared of a dirty green colour. When this mass was put into water scarcely any
colour appeared; but when it had stood some time an exceedingly small cloud of an amethystine
colour appeared near the slag. On adding a little sulphuric acid the cloud disappeared, and the
water remained colourless. This amethystine colour rendering the presence of some manganese
in the ore probable, I took ten grains of the powder and digested it twice with five parts of strong
nitric acid over a lamp furnace, and exposed the dry powder for some time to the air. I then
poured four times the weight of diluted nitric acid on it, adding occasionally a little sugar-candy.
The solution which remained colourless, being decanted off and supersaturated with potash, a
very minute quantity of a white powder was precipitated. These experiments, together with some
others which I think kit needless to recite, showed that only a very minute proportion of
manganese was present in this ore.
21. Iron sand, which is, probably, a sub-species of micaceous iron ore, is found in the
beds of rivers and nullahs after the rainy season.
22. Clay iron stone is found near Darmaparam, Ruttengherry, and many other places.
From the structure of the country; which is entirely primitive, no coals could be expected.
Accordingly none have ever been observed. Indeed if they did occur in India, they would be
neglected by the inhabitants, as in consequence of the late perpetual wars, fuel is every where in
great abundance.
23. Common salt occurs in this country in considerable abundance. It is usually found in
the red soil, upon the surface of which it effloresces in the dry season. It is then swept together in
the morning, separated from the earthy particles by percolation, and crystallized again in shallow
beds made of mortar. It is manufactured in almost every village on the south side of
Chittledroog, and used by those natives who cannot afford sea salt. In consequence of this
manufacture, the quantity of sea salt imported into the eastern and southern ports of the Mysore
is very small. In the southern districts, about Huyrryhurr and Honelly, salt is supplied from the
Malabar coast, from which it is brought by the lombardies on the backs of bullocks. The salt
obtained from the red soil is conceived, when long used, to occasion eruptions on the skin.
24.Carbonate of soda is likewise found in the Mysore. The greatest quantity of it is
manufactured among the hills of the Chittledroog country. It is mixed with a good deal of
common salt. The method of procuring it is similar to that just described for obtaining common
salt, only that its lixivium is evaporated by boiling It is sold in al bazaars under the name of
sobboo. It is manufactured by the washermen, and chiefly used by them., I t is employed
likewise in bleaching. The glass-makers prepare, by a process of their own, the quantity of soda
required for their purposes.
These are called dry grains, because they are sown on the coast after the rains are over,
and on grounds that cannot be watered: but the name does not apply well in the Mysore, where
they are usually sown after the first rains along with other kinds of grain.
They are usually boiled into a kind of pulse called pappu, and ate along with rice or raghi
as a seasoner. The sennaga pappu, or dried sennaga, from which the husk has been separated, is
eaten as a dainty by young and old at fairs and other public and festival occasions. It requires the
best soil, and is often sown in the beds of dry tanks.
The dolichos spicatus, or cow gram, is always sown along with raghi. The raghi is sown
by means of a drill plough, which makes ten or twelve furrows, half a foot distant from each
other; and between every turn of the plough a single furrow is left for the cow gram.
The phoseolus aconitifolius is only cultivated in the northern parts of the Mysore: it is
eaten like green and black gram with jonnalu and rice.
Horse gram is nowhere cheaper or more plentiful than about Bengalore, as it is the only
grain that grows on barren elevated situations, which, on account of the crowded population, are
here cultivated. Horses not accustomed to feed upon it contract, by using it as food, the disease
called the hot piss, and camels become itchy.
Table III. Productions not comprehended in the former List.
Lianæan English Telinga Canary Hindostany Malabar
Names. Names. Names. Names. Names. Names.
Sesamum Gingelie oil Syuwa Wallelu Mitta tēl Ellu
orientale seed
Anthemis Oil seed Werry Huckellu Raw tēl Pā ellu
nuwa
Ricinus Large Per amdah Dodda Arandika Ammanak
communis castor oil harelu tēl wuttu
seed
Ditto Small ditto Chitta Chitta Choti Chittamanak
variatio amdah harelu arandie wuttu
Saccharum Sugar cane Cherruku Kabbu Ganue Carambu
officinale
Gossypium Cotton Pratti Katty Ruvi Paratti
herbaceum
Crotolaria Country Janapa Janapa Sunka Janapirri
jnncea. hemp jhaud
Sugar is manufactured in many parts of the country about Nundydroog: they understand
the process very well; and of manufacturing candy and loaf sugar. In the more northern districts
they can make nothing but jaggery and a kind of coarse powdered sugar. The sugar cane
cultivated is mostly of the red variety. The farmer does not consider it is a profitable article of
culture; it impoverishes the land so much, that three years must be suffered to elapse before
sugar can be raised a second time upon the same field.
Cotton requires a good dry situation, as that afforded by the black marly soil, which takes
its name from this plant(cotton soil). A small shower of rain, if it should fall at the time that it is
getting ripe, spoils the whole crop; fortunately this happens but seldom. Cotton is sown by
means of the drill plough, the furrows being about a foot distant from each other. It might be
cultivated on most of the hills in the country, as the soil on them is very rich.
The werrinuwa* is an oil plant not known on the coast, but found in the higher provinces
of Bengal, from whence I received it under the name of verbesina sativa: it grows in all soils,
even in the very worst. By the natives it is used for the same purposes as the gingeli oil. All oil
used for common purposes is expressed in a mill driven by bullocks. One kolaga of seed yields
one mānd and a quarter of oil, and thirty sīrs can be expressed in the course of a day.
.
The oil from the smaller kind of ricinus communis is used as a medicine, and is chiefly
given to children as a laxative. He oil expressed from the larger seed goes in common under the
name of lamp oil, and is the cheapest oil in India. The plant grows
without the least attention being bestowed on it, and when it has once established itself in any
particular place, it is very difficult to root it out completely.
TABLE IV. List of the proportional Produce of one Sēr of Seed of the different Kinds of
Grain, and of its Time of Sowing and Reaping.
Species of Place. Sowing Time. Reaping Time. Produce.
Grain.
Ooscotah July November 10 Seer
Ayamungalum, January May 10 Ditto
Ayrany August January 40 Ditto
Annaji Ditto Ditto 20 Ditto
Bengalore July November 20 Ditto
Rice…………..{ Sewendrug May January 10 Ditto
Herūr August November 20 Ditto
Harti Ditto Ditto 20 Ditto
Matod Ditto Ditto 60 Ditto
Darmapūry Ditto December 13¼ Ditto
Sīrah June November 15 Ditto
Buswapatam July Ditto 10 Ditto
Some of these vegetables are cultivated in the gardens of the natives, while others
grow wild; the leaves of them only are used in their curries, or boiled with chillies to be eaten
along with rice. There may be many other plants in India, the leaves of which are employed
for similar purposes; but the preceding list contains all that I am acquainted with.
TABLE VI. Fruits and Seeds of Trees and Plants used in Curries.
Linnæan Names. English Names. Telinga Names. Canary Names.
Aeschynomene grandiflora.. Awasi kay…..
Artocarpus integrifolia…. Jack fruit…. Panasa…… Halisena
Bryonia umbellate…… Tia donda….. Tondakay
Capparis zeylanica….. Adonda….. Totlikay
Cucurbita alba….. Pumpkin…..{ Burdave I’dæva gummudu… Dodda
Cucurbita lagenaria….. Tappana kura….. kembadybuda
Cucumis acutangulus….. Garybīra kura….. Dodda sora
Cucumis pentandra….. Nedy nunabhīra….. Hīrakay
Cucumis species….. Nakka dossakay….. Toppa bīra
Cucumis utillatissimus….. Country cucumbers Pandali dossa….. Huly souta
Dolichos lablab….. Yerra chickudu….. Soutakay
Dolichos lablab, var…. Tella chickudu.. Mana vary
Dolichos minimus….. Chickudu………………{ Billa manavary
Ghattawary,
Dolichos spicatus….. Cowgram………. Anapa………. ackimanavary
Dolichos suratu….. Suratikay…… Doddamanavary
Hyperanthera morunga.. Morunga fruit….. Chettu munakay
Hibiscus esculentus…. Bendakay….. Nuggakay
Momordica dioica….. Potti kakara….. Bendakay
Momordica operculata…. Metta kakara….. Giddagalu
Momordica species….. Kakara kay…. Chickakura
Musea paradisiacal, 3 var. Plantain………. {Amartapanny.. Hagalkay
{Chackrakaly……… Bala sara bala
Bonta kay….. Puttabala
Kattenabala
The vine is cultivated in many gardens of the natives, particularly by moormen: in the
higher provinces of Hindostan it is said to be very common; several species of it are growing
wild on the hills of this country.
The cocoa-nut palm is of great importance in some of the northern provinces south of
Chittledrūg: topes of them are seen every where, and some valleys appear like forests of them.
The nuts are transported on bullocks to the more northern countries. The fibres of the cocoa-nut
are made into cables called kayr, but I have no where observed any manufactory of it, nor have I
seen any oil expressed from this nut in Mysore. The success with which this tree is cultivated in
the center, as one may say, of the peninsula, refutes the old opinion that it will thrive only on the
coast; but it requires a soil impregnated with common salt, similar to that which occurs in the
neighbourhood of Sīra.
The palmyra is almost an exotic in the Mysore, though I am confident that it would
grow as well as it does on the coast, and would be of service both to improve the aspect of the
country, and to furnish the inhabitants with wood for building: it would grow on all the barren
high grounds at present unproductive.
The mango tree is a great favourite of the natives of India: it grows on any soil to a
considerable size. About Bengalore it is cultivated in great abundance, and the kind planted is
very good. On the north of Nidgeul these trees are rather scarce, and to the north of Chittledrug
they are extremely so.
Of plantains the variety is not great, nor were any of the better kinds cultivated till very
lately: the delhi, rajah, red, and other plantains are now introduced.
There are two varieties of jack fruit distinguished by the natives; one bearing its fruit on
the branches of the tree, and the other on the stem and roots under ground. The former only is
found in the Mysore.
There are two varieties of the averhoa; one quite sweet and pleasant, and the other sour
and only fit for pickling.
Some plants might be introduced into the Mysore with every chance of succe4ss and
profit. Among others I conceive the following of most importance.
1. The Mauritius and Nankeen cotton. Cotton thrives very well about Bangalore, and
might be cultivated on the inland range of hills, where it would grow with luxuriance.
2. The tea plant from China is, in my opinion, a plant that deserves notice among those
which might be advantageously introduced: if the best kind could be procured from China, I have
little doubt that the climate would be favourable for its cultivation.
3. All kinks of European and Chinese fruit trees; as the apple, pear, chestnut, bread fruit,
lichi, wampi, loquat, &c.
4. Coffee, some of which indeed is already cultivated, and sold in the bazaars of
Bengalore and Seringapatam.
TABLE IX. Jungle Fruit Trees and Plants.
Linnæan Names. English Names. Telinga Names. Canary Names.
Aegle marmelos………… Wood apple… Weleka………. Beldannu
Amyris, spec. nov. ………
Bassia longifolia………….. Ippa pu………. Ippa pu
Carissa carandas………… Wankay………. Kaliwy
Canthium parviflorum….. Balsu…………..
Clausena (Amyris)…….. Kariwēpu……. Kariwa hannu
Eugenia caryophyllata…. Nēredu………. Kara hannu
Grewia arborea………… Pushinika
Alangium decapetatum….. Adeka
Limonia pentaphylla……. Golluga
Memecylon capitellatum…. Alli……………. Kalliwa hannu
Phoenix dactylifera……… Ita
Phlonus jujuba, & var…. Rhegu………… Bora hannu, or Elcha hannu
Rubus mysorensis………..
Semicarpus anacardium…. Nallajidy………. Karrajirika
Ximenia Americana………… Ura neckra….. Nackri
This list is more defective than any of the preceding, because it often happened that I saw
the fruit without the flower, or the flower without the fruit; but the jungle or wild fruits are but
few in number. The best of them is the clausena of Jussieu, a species of amyris which tastes
much like the grape, and grows to a fine shrub only on the highest parts of the country, as about
Nundydrug, Siwaganga, &c. The Ximenia Americana is also a very pleasant, fruit, the juicy part
having a sweet and agreeable taste, while the kernel tastes like that of the cherry: it ripens in May
and June. I have found it only on the Chittledrug hills. The rubus is a new species, a kind of
raspberry; I have only found it wild on the Nundydroog hills: it bears a very pleasant fruit, of the
taste and appearance of the blackberry. There is another species which has been brought from the
Cūrg country.
Bichy, probably a species of gardenia, is a very good fruit; I have never seen it but in the
bazaar at Hurryhurr and Honelly.
TABLE X. Garden Vegetables not comprehended in the preceding Lists.
Linnæan Names. English Telinga Names. Canary Names.
Names.
Allium cepa……… Onions….. Wully, nirully….. Kembally
----------Sativum….. Garlick….. Welluly………… Belluly
Ammomum zinziber……… Ginger…….. Allum………… Hassa sonty
Arachis hypogæa……….. Ground nut Weru sennaga…. Bērukadla
Capsicum annuum………… Chilly…….. Miriapukay….. Maenisanakay
Carthamus tinctorius……… Safflor……… Cusumba….. Cusumy
Coriandrum sativum………. Coriander….. Cottimiry….. Cottimbiry
Cuminum cyminum……….. Cumin seed… Jilakarra………… Jiry
Curcuma longa……………. Turmerick…. Passupu
Nicotiana tabacum……… Tobacco….. Pogāku………….. Hogasoppu
Papaver somniferum……… Opium…….. Gassagasalu…….. Garagamalu
Sinapis alba………………. Mustard……. Awalu…………… Sasu
Trigonella foenugroecum… Fenugreek….. Mentulu………….. Mentealu
Bixa orellana……………. Annotto……..
Among the trees or shrubs introduced by Tippoo is the anotto; I found many plants of it
in the Bengalore gardens, and on Sewendroog hill. At the former place I collected the seed, with
a view to send it to England by the first opportunity, as I recollect that some years ago a
considerable premium was offered for the first ten pounds of this valuable dye from the East
Indies. My object was, that it might be ascertained whether the anotto raised in India be as good
as that from South America. I t might be cultivated on all the hills in this country; indeed it
grows on Sewendroog with great luxuriance and almost spontaneously.
Carthamus tinctorius, or saflor, is chiefly cultivated about Bengalore, and used by the
natives to dye their holiday turbans and other cloths of a beautiful red: the moormen are
particularly fond of this colour, though it recommends itself rather by its brilliancy than its
durability.
Opium was formerly cultivated to a considerable extent about Uscotah: small quantities
of it are still produced in that country.
All the other articles in the preceding list are used by the natives as spices and introduced
into their curries.
Flax might be cultivated here, as I have found some plants of it growing wild about
Hurryhurr. In the Mahratta country this plant is raised on account of its seed, from which oil is
prepared and sent to all parts of the coast. The crotolaria juncea yields a similar kind of fibre, and
in greater abundance: it is employed for the manufacture of ropes and gunnies*.
Among the few forest trees that deserve attention, the sandal is the most important: it
grows chiefly on the high inland range of hills.
It may be worth while to make a few observations on the mode of manuring practiced in
this part of the country. The natives, being well aware of the importance of this article, make
composts in the villages of all vegetable and animal matter and rubbish that they can preserve,
throwing them in a heap near the road, from whence it is carried in carts to their raghie fields.
When they manure leguminous grains, they put a little on each seed at the time of
planting; for dry grain the manure is ploughed in. On black cotton soil no manure whatever is
laid.
All cattle are driven to the village before sunset, and kept in places surrounded by high
walls: the method of folding them on the field, as practiced in other parts of the country, is not
known. The precaution of securing cattle in a strong place was probably required under a
divided and irregular government, and it is still requisite wherever the country swarms with
beasts of prey; but in an open country, like the greatest part of the Mysore, the benefit resulting
to agriculture from folding cattle on the fields ought not to be neglected.
The shrubs used for hedges round the villages or houses are the agave Americana, and the
guilandina bonduccella. The former grows very large, and when high forms an excellent fence
against all intruders: the latter is astonishingly prickly. Bound hedges, as they are called, are
only common south of Nidgcul and about Bengalore; farther north they are not often observed.
XV. QUADRUPEDS, BIRDS, AND FISHES.
Mysore, so far as I know, cannot boast of any peculiar quadrupeds; this is the case at least
with that part of the country which I have seen; the following are the most remarkable.
The tiger frequents only the wilder parts of the country, and seldom comes into the open
plains; it is a dreadful animal, but too well known to be described here.
The leopard (felis leopard, var. Shaw) climbs on trees, whence it is sometimes chased b
the tiger: it frequently attacks men, but is often beaten, in consequence of the want of courage,
and suffers for its temerity. This animal infests most parts of the Mysore.
The ursine sloth (bradypus ursinus, Shaw, probably a real ursus) commonly called the
Indian bear, is a very destructive ill-natured animal, and what Ovid says of the real bear is very
applicable to this quadruped:
At lupus et turpes instant morientibus ursi.
They acquire, by dint of application and discipline, the same accomplishments which
were considered as peculiar to the Polish bears.
Among the hills of this country is a species of wild dog, which attacks larger animals in a
body and destroys them; I have never myself had an opportunity of seeing this animal The Parria
dog, a domestic animal, is oftener afflicted with canine madness than the dogs on the coast: at
Sirah and at Bengalore many men that had been bit by them were brought to me in the last stages
of this horrid disorder. They all expired under much milder symptoms than those that have been
observed in Europe. The hydrophobia was by no means well marked, for all to the last could be
prevailed upon to swallow fluid medicines, though they preferred dry powders. They all
complained of much pain in the throat, just about the palate, and were constantly spitting, though
with some difficulty: the delirium was high, and their imaginations chiefly occupied with wild
animals, from which however it was frequently possible to divert them merely by speaking to
them. The natives are as little acquainted with remedies against this dreadful disease as we are
ourselves; they have not even an idea of extirpating the part that has been hurt, which, after the
bite of snakes, as well as of mad animals, is in my pinion, the only step which can be depended
on for averting the dreadful consequences.
As for the other quadrupeds, such as antelopes, deer, &c., I have been for many years
collecting materials for their natural history, as well as for that of the birds and fishes to be found
in the country; and I may, perhaps, hereafter lay the result of my researches before the public.
The variety of birds n the mysore is not so great as on the coast; and I have not observed
a single one that was not to be found below the Ghauts.
The buceros, or rhinoceros bird, is rather uncommon upon the coast. It is frequently seen
in the Mysore, in those places where trees of the fig kind abound. On the fruit of this kind of tree
only I have found them feeding. It is surely a more agreeable food than the nux vomica, with
which M. Sonnerat has thought proper to treat them. As far as I recollect, the shrub producing the
nux vomica is no where to be found above the Ghauts.
The Bustard Florican ( a species of Otis) is equally scarce on the coast. It is found in the
Mysore, though not frequently. It is a large bird, above the size of a full grown turkey. It s flesh
is esteemed a great delicacy.
Tolerably good fish may be had almost in all seasons, from the larger tanks. The Silurus
asotus is the most common, and very well tasted. There are several species of fish in the
Tumbudra, which never have been described, and which, of course, are unknown to the
naturalists of Europe.
Alligators are also found in the Tumbudra. One of them was brought to Col. Mackenzie
in my absence. He will probably favour the public with a drawing and description of the animal,
which would be highly acceptable, as the specific differences of those found in India are by no
means fully understood.
Among the insects, I must notice the Locust (Gryllus migratorius), a flight of which we
observed in 1801 at Seerah. They prove at times, when they come in large numbers, very
destructive to the country.
That destructive insect the Carian, is not so prejudicial to the cocoa-nut trees in the
Mysore as it is upon the coast.
In the mountainous parts of the country, many swarms of small bees fix their honey-
combs to rocks or trees. In some provinces, the collection of wax and honey forms even a
branch of revenue, though not a very productive one . The natural history of those industrious
and harmless animals deserves farther inquiry. The same thing may be said of the Lacca insect.
In certain situations, and at the beginning of the rains, a number of snakes infest the
country, some of which are dreadfully noxious. The Cobra de capello is, however, less frequently
met with in the Mysore than on the coast. I have collected and preserved may species of this
animal, which I may describe hereafter.
XVI. PRICES OF PROVISIONS, &c.
The following Table of the bazaar prices of grain, at different places, is extracted from
my Journals. The measure is every where reduced to one common standard, namely, the sīr, at
sixty-four dubs weight, or two pounds.
Agamungalum Chittledroog Hurryhurr Talem Buswapatam Bangalore Sawendroog Heroor Hartee
20 --1
Candy.
RUTTENGHERRY ‡.
If on black ground, raghie and anuma are sown together, the account will
stand nearly K. ps. fs.
The price of one tum of raghi………………………………………. 0 51/8
Of anuma ten ballus………………………………………………….. 0 11/2
For ploughing the ground four times with two ploughs, in July and
August……………………………………………………………….. 1 2
Weeding it with the weeding plough for four days in the month of
September or October………………………………………………….. 0 11/2
Culy for weeding when it is high……………………………………… 0 5
For cutting it in November …………………………………………… 0 4
2 91/2
Produce 1 candy of raghie and 81/4 tum of anuma,
Of which the Circar receives………………………………………… 10 Tums.
The village parria…………………………………………………… 11/2
The village servants………………………………………………….. 1
The Circar servants…………………………………………………... 0¾
The ryot, or cultivator…………………………………………………. 15
281/4 Tums.
K. ps. fs.
For ploughing eight or nine times with two ploughs…………………. 0 7½
For folding sheep on it for some time, at the rate of 5000 for a pagoda
for one day………………………………………………………….. 2 0
To bring manure from the village…………………………………… 2 0
To 24,000 sugar plants……………………………………………. 12 0
Culy for planting…………………………………………………….. 0 3
For making a hedge or railing round the garden…………………….. 1 0
For hoeing and raising the ground round the plants after they are a
month old …………………………………………………………….. 0 8
For digging small water channels, one between three or four rows of
sugar cane………………………………………………………………. 1 0
For tying the sugar canes that sprout out of one plant (the first time)
together ……………………………………………………………….. 1 0
Two months after again (the second time)…………………………….. 0 9
-----------------------------(the third time)………………………………... 0 8
For religious ceremonies after the cane has attained two-thirds of its
growth, 60 sīr of rice and ghee for the Bramins……………………….. 1 0
For cutting the cane and bringing it to the boiling place, for ten days
at the rate of seven women each, one fanam a day…………………….. 1 0
Men at the rate of four for one gold fanam per day, for ten days…….. 3 0
For building a shed or place to boil jaggary…………………………… 1 0
For ceremonies to the swamy of the shed…………………………… 2 0
Oil for the lamps…………………………………………………….. 0 6
For chunam (lime)…………………………………………………… 0 2½
Hire for the sugar mill………………………………………………….. 0 5
Hire for the iron boilers…………………………………………………. 1 0
Carpenters’ pay………………………………………………………… 1 6
Sugar boilers’ pay……………………………………………………….. 0 5
Fuel (required besides the expressed stalks of sugar canes)…………… 1 5
A man’s pay for four months, to keep in the night the jackals away……… 1 2
Circar’s kist………………………………………………………….. 10 0
47 7
The produce in jaggary is in common 100 maund, from which is to be
Deducted Mds. Seers.
For the man to whom the mill belongs………………………………… 0 20
For the iron boiler (vat)……………………………………………….. 0 20
Mds. Sīrs.
For the carpenter……………………………………………………….. 0 20
People employed to boil jaggary……………………………………….. 1 0
For the mastry*……………………………………………………………. 0 10
Pot- maker………………………………………………………………. 0 10
For the village servants, viz,:
For the goudu, or head man of the village……………………………… ½ 0
----------shanbog …………………………………………………… ½ 0
---------- tallary…………………………………………………………. ½ 0
---------- parria who takes care of watering the fields…………………… ½ 0
--------- village chuckler (shoe-maker)…………………………………… ½ 0
---------- pot-maker…………………………………………………………. ¼ 0
----------- barber……………………………………………………………... ¼ 0
Total maunds……………………….. 6 0
Produce, remaining 94 the maund at five fanams…………………pags. 47 0
Pieces of cane for new plantation……………………………… 12 0
59 0
Deduct the expenses……………………………………. 47 7
Remain …………………. 11 3
As most ryots have their own cattle and their own family to assist them, greater part of
the expenses of ploughing may be put to his profit, but that for cutting and weeding, &c. the
crops, greatest part goes out of the family.
A ryot thinks himself completely ruined if he loses his horned cattle, and it is the last of
his property arrested by his creditors. If he owes any thing to the Circar, they will be seized but
never actually taken from him. The taking care of cattle and the doing the harder work of
cultivation is most commonly entrusted to a parria, who serves the ryot for a trifle, probably two
or three rupees a year, besides his victuals and a small proportion of grain.
The female part of the family prove in common the most advantageous in the household, as no
duties or taxes are levied upon the works oaf their hands, the profit, though small, goes entirely
to themselves. I t is said besides that the wives of the Hindoos are remarkably saving and
economical, and that they do not easily slip an opportunity of improving their fortunes.
XIX. INSTRUMENTS OF TILLAGE.
These instruments are remarkable only for their rudeness and simplicity. The following
descriptions, with the accompanying figures, will give the reader an accurate idea of them:
Plate II. fig. 1, represents the common plough used all over the peninsula: a is the
ploughshare, a piece of iron 1½ foot long and 1½ inch broad, and the only piece of iron about the
whole machine; b is the handle by which the ploughman guides the plough; c c a piece of wood
to which the oxen are fastened; d d, the wooden plough about 2½ feet long.
Fig. 3, represents the weeding plough used about Hurryhurr; e e is a piece of wood 18
inches long, m m pieces of iron; n the space between the iron three inches long.
Fig. 3, represents a harrow used about Bengalore to precede the drill plough, h h is a
piece of wood four feet six inches long, I teeth ten inches long; j, j, the bars of wood to which it
is fixed 7½ feet long, k the handle two feet nine inches long.
Fig. 4, is an instrument used about Bengalore to even the ground before sowing. It is
made of black wood, and the ploughman usually stands upon it in order to increase the weight.
The length from l l is four feet nine inches; m, m, each six feet long.
Fig. 5, is a drill plough used about Bengalore for sowing raghi: a is a cut into which the
seed is put, four inches deep; b, b, b, hollow bamboos through which the seed runs into the
furrows. They perforate the teeth about the middle, and are three feet six inches long. The length
from c to c is four feet nine inches; d is the handle, four feet nine inches long. The pieces of
wood e, e, to which the bullocks are fixed, are nine feet long; f is a bamboo with a cup to receive
annuma seed, guided by a man who follows the large drill which sows the raghi; the bamboo is
one foot three inches long, and the cup 1½ inch deep: g is a rope 2½ feet long, by which the
bamboo is fastened to the drill plough.
Fig. 6, is a drill plough used about Hurryhurr for sowing jonnalu. The distance between n
and n is three feet; 0,0,0,0, are hollow bamboos; p,p,p,p, are teeth armed with q q q q, a share or
a piece of iron.
Fig. 7, is a plough used to weed raghi about Bengalore. The distance between h and h is
one foot five inches; i,i, i, i are pieces of iron sticking 1⅔ inches out of the wood; k is the handle
two feet long; l the handle to guide, two feet five inches; m, m, the pieces of wood to which the
cattle are tied, seven feet long.
Fig. 8, is an instrument used about Hurryhurr to even the ploughing ground. The distance
between r and r is three feet; s, s, is a piece of iron.
XX. COINS, WEIGHTS, AND MEASURES.
The current coins in this country are in gold, silver, and copper; but the firs metal is most
abundant. The gold coins are mohīrs, which are of Moorish origin; pagodas, an original Indian
coin, and fanams.
Most gold coins are alloyed. Few are of the twelfth colour* or pure gold. The alloy is
called matam, and consists of three parts silver and one part copper. Pure gold is denoted by the
number 12, and whatever is wanting to make up 12 in speaking of gold is to be considered as
alloy. Thus gold of the 11th colour means an alloy composed of 11 parts gold and one part of
alloy.
The pagoda is used as the standard weight for many of the dearer medicines.
In the determination of the value of the different coins I have used the silver fanam
according to the Company’s rate of exchange; namely, silver pagoda † at 45 fanams and 46¼
cash --- and one fanam at 80 cash.
Gold Coins in the Mysore.
Weight. Alloy. Value.
Grains. Fan. Cash.
Star pagoda…………………………… 54 7/24 45 46¼
Bahadary or Sultany, Heckary, Paroky, Karku
(Mettalu), or Madras pagoda………………….. 54 5/24 49 78
Jamshary or Samagherry………………………. 6/24
Harpunpilly, Venketpatty, or Venketrailu…… 7/24
Porto Novo……………………………………… 11/24 42 73
Gold mohīrs, Bahadary or Ammoody………… 228 40
----------Asheraffy……………………………… 208 0
--------- Mahommeddy……………………………. 91 0
* The Hindoos distinguish the purity of gold by its colour.
† In mercantile transactions the star pagoda is reckoned at 42 fanams.
Weight. Alloy. Value.
Grains. Fan. Cash.
Putady cash, Venetian…………………… 0* 65 5
Sannary…………………………………… 0 65 5
Calcutta cash…………………………….. 0 55 24
Apranjie cash……………………………… 0 3 26½
The mode of purifying gold used by the natives is to take equal quantities of brick dust
and common salt, a good handful, which is put between two pieces of potter’s ware, and into it
the gold. These are placed in the midst of a heap of dried cow dung (wratties), lighted at the top
in a place where the wind cannot produce a strong fire, and the pagoda or other pieces of gold
when taken out appear incrusted with a black crust, which must be removed, and the process as
often repeated as the same is reproduced.
Gold Fanams.
Weight. Value.
Drams. Grains. Fan. Cash.
Sultany and Kantiray………………………….. 6 4 27
Heckary…………………………………………. 0 5 40
Silver Coins are
Company’s rupee………………………………… 2 51 14 51†
Arcot rupee………………………………………. 14 51
Pondicherry rupee………………………………. 14 51
Rajah rupee………………………………………... 15 0
Sultany……………………………………………….. 15 0
Silver fanam…………………………………………… 15 1 0
The Rajah rupee is the stamp of the present Rajah, and its real value is in no degree
greater than the Company’s rupee.
The exchange of all these fluctuates very much.
Silver fanams are very scarce in Mysore, and only to be found in the larger places.
Copper Coin.
Weight. Value.
Grams. Grains. Cash.
Dutch dub………………………………………… 4 35 26
Arcot duddu……………………………………… 3 30 20
* Pure gold. † In the Company’s accounts reckoned as 12 fanams, 60 cash.
Weight. Value.
Drams. Grains. Cash.
Elephant or Enne duddu…………………… 3 30 20
Double elephant……………………………… 7 0 40
Sîrah duddu………………………………….. 1 35 14
Masulipatam…………………………………… 4 0 20
Saya duddu……………………………………… 20
Enne casu, or cash……………………………… 40 7
Madras duddu *…………………………………. 1 44 10
The continual diminution of copper coins is owing to the natives, who get them
constantly made into bras or copper vessels, employed by all those who can afford them.
The Kantiray pagoda and the honnu are imaginary coins. The former is used in all
revenue accounts, and likewise in settling most of the private accounts of the natives.
Probably in former times it was a real coin. Whenever the word pagoda occurs in this work
without a particular stamp being marked, a Kantiray pagoda or three rupees is always
understood. To the west of Hurryhurr, in some districts formerly belonging to Vizapoor,
the word hunn, the Hindostanee term for a pagoda, is used in the revenue accounts, and its
value fixed at half a Sultany pagoda, or two rupees.
The weights or dry measures in this country are of two different kinds, both defined
very accurately, though gross impositions are practiced respecting both. The former is
called the bazaar weight, and used in the sale of what are called bazaar articles, as
tamarinds, turmeric, and all different kinds of drugs. The latter is used for grain both in
the bazaars and in all revenue transactions. The great difficulty lies in the multiplicity of
weights used in different districts; for almost every Cusbah † of small district has weights
and measures differing widely from all those in its neighbourhood. The consequence of this
is that the cunning banyans frequently take advantage of this multiplicity to deceive
strangers. The inhabitants of the place cannot be so easily taken in, as they are all well
acquainted with their own peculiar weights and measures.
The only general and uniform measure and weight is the pucca sīr of sixty-four
dubs weight. And the weight of a dub is four drams. This sīr alters according to the weight
of the dub. If these be lighter than four drams more dubs will be requisite to make up the
sīr, if they be heavier fewer will do. This measure appears in some writings of very old date,
as in the Sudra Ganitam; yet it is said to be of Moorish origin. It has made its way into all
accounts, and has as it were dislodged all other weights.
Both fluids and dry articles are determined by weight, with the exception of oil, for
the sale of which a kind of graduated measure is employed. All kinds of grain by common
consent are sold by a measure which is not merely filled, but heaped up as high as possible
above the lips. If a person buys only half the measure he loses the heaped part, which
generally amounts to 1/7th or 1/6th of the whole.
It would be well worth while to ascertain the way that the agents buy grain in times
of war. If they purchase by heaped measures and distribute it in a different way, the profits
accruing to them and the consequent loss of Government must be considerable. Suppose
that each man of an army of 20,000 receive each a sīr a day, the profits of the agent will be
2500 sīrs per day, or 75,000 per month, a quantity which would support the army for 3½
days.
The lowest standard weight seems to be the dub. Smaller quantities are determined
by common fractions, with which the lower classes of Hindoos are much better acquainted
than the common people in Europe. They ascend regularly by fours. Of decimals, as far as
I have had an opportunity of examining their arithmetic, they appear to be entirely
ignorant. There is a Snascrit work of the name of Līlavaty, which treats of this subject. In
the Telinga there is a work on the same branch of knowledge, called Sudra Ganitam,
written long ago, or rather translated from the Sanscrit by a man of the name of Mulliah.
The following weights are the standards for the Circars. As they are derived from
the Sanscrit, they may be considered as general for Hindostan:
1 Paddy seed …………………is one vīsum……………………… ½ grain.
4 Vīsums………………are one gulivinda* or 1 patika………… 2 grains.
2 Gulivindas………………………..addaga………………………… 4 grains.
2 Addagas………………………chinum………………………….. 8 grains.
2½ Chinums………………….tsavila………………………………20 grains.
2 Tsavilas………………… dharanum……………………………. 40 grains.
2 Dharanums…………….. mada………………………………. 1 dram 20 grains.
3 Madas…………………..tulam………………………………. 4 drams.
6 Tulams……………….. are one pavu sīru or ¼ sīr ………… 3 ounces.
4 Pavus…………………..sīru……………………………. 12 ounces.
5 Sīrs…………………… vīsa or 1 tackeda……………. 3 1b. 12 ounces.
2 Vīsas………………… yettu…………………………… 7 1b. 8 ounces.
2 Yettus……………….. arda manugudu………………. 15 1b.
2 Arda manugudu……….manugudu……………………….. 30 1b.
5 Manugudu…………… yadum or panchakum……………. 150 1b.
2 Yadums………………pandum…………………………….. 300 1b.
2 Pandums………………Putadu = candy……………….. 600 1b.
Dry Measure.
1b. oz.
4 Dubs weight…………… are one gidda……………….. 0 2
2 Giddas………………….. arasola……………………….0 4
2 Arasolas………………….. sola………………………… 0 8
2 Solas………………………tavadu……………………….1 0
2 Tavadus………………….. manika…………………….. 2 0
2 Manikas………………… addadu…………………….. 4 0
2 Addadus…………………. Conchum………………….. 8 0
2 Conchums……………….. Irasa……………………….. 16 0
2 Irasas……………………. Tum………………………. 32 0
5 Tums…………………….. yadum……………………...160 0
2 Yadums………………… pandum…………………… 320 0
2 Pandums………………… puttadu…………………… 640 0
List of Candies and Tums reduced to Pucca Sīr, used in different Places
of the Mysore, each sīr of 2 1b. English weight.
Bētumungalum…………. 1 Candy is 160 Sīrs and 1 Tum…. 8 Sīrs
Uscotah……………………. 1 ditto…… 200 ditto….. 1 ditto…. 10 ditto
Bengalore………………… 1 ditto…….. 200 ditto….. 1 ditto….. 10 ditto
Sewendrug………………… 1 ditto……… 200 ditto…… 1 ditto…….. 10 ditto
Kyamungalum……………... 1 ditto…….. 960 ditto……..1 ditto……. 48 ditto
Chittledrug……………….. 1 ditto……… 960 ditto…… 1 ditto ….. 48 ditto
Matod…………………… 1 ditto……… 960 ditto….. 1 ditto…… 48 ditto
Talem…………………. 1 ditto……… 960 ditto…… 1 ditto……. 48 ditto
Hurryhurr………………. 1 Candy is 3200 Sīrs and 1 Tum……. 160 Sīrs
Ayrany…………………….. 1 ditto…… 1600 ditto….. 1 ditto……. 80 ditto
Annaji…………………… 1 ditto…… 1600 ditto….. 1 ditto……. 80 ditto
Buswapatam……………… 1 ditto…….. 1600 ditto….. 1 ditto……. 80 ditto
Rutnagherry………………. 1 ditto……. 1600 ditto….. 1 ditto…….. 80 ditto
Honelly…………………. 1 ditto……. 320 ditto….. 1 ditto…… 16 ditto
Herur…………………….. 1 ditto…….. 1280 ditto…… 1 ditto…… 64 ditto
Hartie…………………….. 1 ditto…… 1280 ditto…….. 1 ditto…… 64 ditto
Darmapury………………. 1 ditto…… 1440 ditto…… 1 ditto…….. 72 ditto
Sîrah…………………… 1 ditto…… 1920 ditto…… 1 ditto……. 96 ditto
Many different modes might be thought of to reduce this chaos into union. The easiest
and most readily understood by the common people, and the least liable to fraud and
impositi8on, would undoubtedly be the best. Stamped measures and weights are very bad modes
of preventing deception; because, as they are always made of metal, a very small degree of
hammering is sufficient to alter the shape of the one and the weight of the other, and thus render
both unfit for the purpose for which they were intended. The surest and best mode of
determining measures is certainly by determining the weight which each should amount to. The
introduction of English weights would be commodious for Europeans, but on account of the
ignorance of the lower classes of Indians, it would expose them to great imposition from the
banyans, and on that account would be injurious. The rupee and dub are at present used every
where as weights, and might, therefore, be taken as a standard.
A Company’s rupee weighs about three drams, or two drams fifty-six grains.
12 Rupees would be ⅛ Sīr.
24 Ditto…………… ¼ Ditto.
48 Ditto………….. ½ Ditto.
96 Ditto………….. 1 Ditto = 2¼1b.
The higher weights could be easily settled, for example,
4 Sīr……………… 1 Conchum.
4 Conchum………. 1 Tum.
20 Tums………… 1 Putty.
The smaller weights might be determined as at present,
½ Grain…………. 1 Paddy seed.
4 Paddy seeds……….1 Gulivinda—2 grains.
7 Gulivindas………. ¼ Pagoda’s weight.
28 Ditto…………… ½ Ditto.
56 Ditto……………. 1 Ditto.
The Masulipatam dub, if generally introduced, would be still more commodious. It
weighs very nearly half an ounce. Sixty-four of them would make exactly a sīr of two pounds.
This is already a received weight in many parts of the Circars. But care should be taken
that all dubs have exactly the same weight, a circumstance which has not hitherto been attended
to.
It is a very common practice to mention, in the settlement of a bargain, the weight to be
employed. The common weight fixed upon is the copper coin of the country, and if large
quantities of any article have to be weighed, stones, the weight of which has been previously
determined, are employed for the purpose.
The common scales are merely flat baskets suspended from a balanced pole, which is tied
to a noose. It is the usual practice to weigh the article first in one scale and then in the other, and
nobody will but any article without seeing that this precaution is attended to.
The land measures are still less accurately defined than those of which we have been
speaking. In most places the amount of land is determined by the quantity of seed required to
sow it. Thus a sīr or a tum of land means an extent of ground which will take a sīr or a tum of
seed to sow it. This is obviously the vaguest of all the modes of measuring land hitherto devised;
as the quantity of see will vary, not only according to the kind of grain employed, but likewise
according to the nature and fertility of the soil. In some places the extent of ground is determined
by the quantity of it which a certain number of cattle are able to labour in a day. This mode is
likewise inaccurate; though not quite so fallacious as the preceding.
It would be easy and very useful for the revenue officers to establish a general measure of
land on the coast. The mode employed in the Chetri Ganitam,, a work on land measures, might
be adopted.
XXI. COMMERCE OF THE COUNTRY.
The commerce of the Mysore was in a very languishing state during the reigns of
Hyder and Tippoo, because both of these princes prohibited all intercourse between their
dominions and the Company’s territories. Indeed the country is not well situated for
external trade, nor has it many articles of its own growth or manufacture fit for
exportation. The only article of consequence that I recollect at present is sandal wood,
which is produced abundantly and of the best quality.; all of it that grows wild in the
country belongs to the Rajah, and he prohibits his subjects from cutting down a single tree
under the penalty of death. Small pieces of it may be purchased in the bazaars at a
tolerably cheap rate; but the best sandal wood can only be procured from the Rajah or his
Diwan.
The core only of the stem of this tree possesses the qualities for which the wood is
esteemed, and these qualities are improved in proportion to the age of the tree. It is sent on
carts to the coast. Large plantations of it should be established on the hills, otherwise it will
very soon become a scarce article.
Lacca is collected in the Mysore, but in such small quantities that it is scarcely
entitles to notice when we are speaking of the trade of the country.
Cotton in small quantities is exported from the neighbourhood of Hurryhurr.
Of late years a great deal of grain, as rice, raghi, and horse gram have been
exported from the Mysore to the Carnatic; the scarcity in the latter country enabling the
merchants to pay the high duties, which amount to about 100 per cent.
The only manufacture in the Mysore is glass or bangles, which is carried from
Matod all over the country; and steel wires at Chinnapatam; besides those mentioned in
other parts of this tract.
All merchandize is carried on the backs of bullocks, and the carriers are called
lambardis*, a set of people who support themselves by carrying salt from the coast to the
interior of the country, and cotton, wheat, &c. from the interior to the coast. They live
constantly under tents, and carry their families always with them. When they stop fro any
considerable time near towns they supply the bazaars with wood. This constitutes the
occupation of their women, who are generally handsome.
The men are stout and well made, fond of smoking their hobble bobble*, and obey a
naique of their own choosing, who regulates their marches and settles their bargains. They
always travel in large parties. They are all Hindoos, speak Hindostany or Mahratta to each
other, and ware usually acquainted with Telinga. They men have nothing peculiar in their
dress, but the other sex are decorated in a way very different from what is usual among
Hindoo women. They have petticoats and cholies, and their arms and legs are all over
covered with brass rings.
They are allowed to travel unmolested in times of war, and whatever party falls in
with them pays for what is taken, even supposing it known that it was originally intended
for the enemy. In some countries they are subjected to a trifling tax; but no imposition is
laid upon them in those places where they purchase their salt. They must continue to
possess their privileges, as long as the roads remain in their present bad state. They are
satisfied with so moderate a profit that it is not likely that the roads will be soon attended
to.
A great deal of cloth is manufactured in different parts of the country, particularly
about Bengalore; but little of it is exported. In case of a great demand for the European
market, it might be obtained from this place in considerable quantity. The cloth at present
made is thin, and nearly similar to that manufactured at Salem. Cotton is rather dear, as it
must be brought from the ceded districts; but it would soon become cheaper if the demand
for cloth were to increase.
The different kinds of cloth made in different places, with their prices, may be seen
from the following table:
I was informed that, in this place, the miners are restricted to the spot which they at
present work; that it is nearly exhausted; and that , for a long time past, they have not found
diamonds of any considerable size. Many places in the neighbourhood they consider as very
promising. They pointed out one place at Candapetta, close to the spot in which they were
working, and another very extensive one near Currapully. From this last spot they entertain great
expectations, as the diamond bed in it is about six feet in thickness, the smaller pebbles in greater
abundance, and the soil of a redder colour than any where else in the neighbourhood. The land
belongs to a Pagoda, or a Bramin; and they say it is not worth more than seventeen rupees a year.
The proprietor would give it up for eighty pagodas ready money, but Colonel Munro had refused
permission to work it. I mention this circumstance merely to show that the country is by no
means exhausted, and that abundance of diamonds might be procured should an increased
demand for them arise.
The farmers, or ryots, are also very averse to the extension of the diamond mines, and
oppose their encroachments with all their influence. But I think that these men might find plenty
of ground to cultivate in the country, much better worth their labour than these particular spots.
The old grounds are rented, I understand, to a headman, who pays the Company the
yearly sum of 130 pagodas for ten mines, which he is at liberty to work, at Cundapetta,
Osalumpully, and their subordinate villages. He usually works three or four of these mines
himself, and lets out the others at the rate of nine rupees a month for each mine. For all
diamonds above a pagoda weight, of whatever kind, he is obliged to pay one-third of the value to
the Company.
In these districts, the miners, I was informed, are paid by the month. Sixteen persons,
men and women, are employed in each mine, and each receives one pagoda of wages per month.
Half of them are employed in mining, and the other half in carrying on the subsequent
operations. These people are inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, suders, who, from their
infancy, are brought up to this work, and with the ideas necessary for the undertaking, they pride
themselves on their honesty to their employers.
I tried to persuade these workmen to give me, for a considerable premium, a basket full
of the unwashed diamond bed, but was absolutely refused a single handful, till I obtained it from
the owner himself. At Ovalumpelly, I took it out of a mine which they had been obliged to
abandon, because it had encroached on the cultivated ground. From the renter I understood that
the usual profits on working a mine are reckoned at 5000 pagodas on an expenditure of 2000;
and, in my opinion, it cannot be less, the undertaking being considered as a lottery, in which
there are blanks as well as prizes; and the real owners seldom or never appear, but entrust the
management to hirelings, who may be rogues, but who, at all events, must be paid well. The
works in the Kistna are, by all accounts, carried on in a different manner.
In the year 1808, I paid a visit to the diamond mines at Banaganpilly., in the Dekan;
and, as the bed in which the diamonds occur at that place is a solid, it may be worth while to give
an account of it, in order that we may throw all the light in our power upon the nature of the beds
in which this precious and rare production of nature has been deposited.
As Banaganpilly is a place of some consequence, its geographical position will easily be
found by consulting the map; but I shall here state a few particulars respecting its mineralogy. It
is situated at the northern extremity of the plain which commences at the southern range of hills,
near Cuddapah, and about sixty miles from that place. It participates in the same climate, the
same soil, and the same vegetable productions. The country rises gently from the river Pennar,
till within a few miles of Bannaganpilly; and where it is most elevated, at the distance of forty or
fifty miles from Cuddapah, some crops are cultivated which are not to be seen at the latter place:
as flax, safflour, and wheat.
In India, where art has done little, the general productions of the soil are the best
criterions of its composition. The only exception to this rule is rice, which will grow in any
soil,provided a sufficient supply of water can be procured. As the soil between Cuddapah and
Banaganpilly is mostly vegetable earth, jonna (holcus sorghum) and sajja (holcus spicatus) are
chiefly attended to. When it is poorer, and a mixture of red loam, gravel, and vegetable soil., as
near the hills, raghie (gleucena corocana) and aruga (paspalum frumentaceum) are the only kinds
of grain that will grow.
There are few or no tanks north of the Pennar. Near the villages, the water is raised from
well, for the cultivation of a little rice, and for gardens; while, for food, it is frequently brought
from a small river that winds through the country. This river comes from the west, and has
frequently very steep and high banks.
About forty miles north of Cuddapa, a range of hills make their appearance to the
westward. At firs they take a nartherly direction, then bend easterly, and at last run nearly due
east. This range, together with another to the westward of Cuddapah, that of Ganjecotta,
encloses the plain in which the diamond mines are situated on every side. The former consists
chiefly of hills, which, in this country, are called table hills. They are quite straight at top, and
usually level for some extent, so that even villages are built on them, and some cultivation is
carried on at their very summits. Such hills, in the Mysore, consist chiefly of a kind of
decomposed green stone, but here, I believe, they are principally slate-clay; for this stone is so
abundant in the country through which I passed, that all houses and walls are built of them,
which gave the villages an uncommonly regular and comfortable appearance. Calcareous tuff,
and black marble, are also found in that part of the country. Hence the water in the wells is often
brackish. The black slaty limestone, at Door, is well known, and sent to all parts of the country.
The village of Banaganpilly is situated within four or five miles of the hills, and lies upon
their south side. Combum lies about sixty miles east from it, and Goothy about fifty miles south-
west. It is the residence of a Jaghirdār * (Assad Ali Khan ) of the Nizam’s; who, if we can judge
from the fine new town (Kottapettah) which he has built, at the distance of about two miles from
Banaganpilly, must be a good and a wise manager. He keeps a train of one dummer, one fifer,
and about 400 sepoys, foot and cavalry.
As soon as I arrived at the place, I sent a message to acquaint him with my object, and to
request his permission to visit the mine; which I knew was the best way of ensuring his good
will. One of his officers waited upon me in consequence, with orders to facilitate my pursuits.
His attention I easily secured, by a present of a few bottles of wine, of which I deprived myself
for some days without the least scruple †.
The country here is sandy and stony, and less fertile than it is a few miles to the south: the
stones are chiefly conglomerates, composed of siliceous materials. The village of Banaganpilly
is built at the foot of a low ridge of hills, on which the diamond mines are situated; these hills run
nearly east and west, and consist of distinct conical elevations from one hundred to two hundred
feet perpendicular height. The farthest east of these hills is said to yield the best diamonds, but it
has been so completely ransacked on all sides, that most of the mines at present wrought are in
the hill immediately on its west side. There is scarcely any vegetation on these hills, a few
prickly plants excepted, which grow between the stones and a tree or two near the first ascent.
A very desultory and destructive mode of mining is followed. A man chuses a piece of
ground, and if not immediately lucky, which is frequently the case, he speedily leaves it; another
person succeeds, and makes an opening at the distance of a few yards: he discovers a favourable
spot, and continues to work it for a little way, but finding a diminution in his earnings soon
abandons it for another; by this method of proceeding much ground is wasted and much money
lost. The undertaking is looked upon as a lottery, in which the enterprizers rather purchase than
renew a ticket.
The mines are scarcely any thing else but deep holes, open at top; sometimes indeed the work is
carried on for some extent under the rock, which is then supported by stone pillars: I saw none
deeper than twenty feet. The gallery under the rock is so low, that the people are obliged to work
in it sitting, a mode of working which an Indian prefers to every other. As most of the miners
had left this place for the richer mines of the Kishna, I did not see them at work; I know only that
they never employ gunpowder to blast the rock, though such an auxiliary would very much
facilitate their labours. The solid rock of the hills (which by the bye is not quite destitute of
diamonds) is an aggregate consisting chiefly of a coarse grey hornstone, with rounded pebbles of
the same species, but of a fine variety of stone, or of jasper of different colours. At some depth
this rock becomes a ferruginous sandstone, the grains of which are finely cemented together; and
this kind of stone usually forms the roof of the floor of the mines. The floor is generally of a
reddish brown colour with shining particles, and strikes fire with steel.
Through this solid rock they are obliged to make their way before they arrive at the bed
in which the diamonds are usually found. They commence at different places, as their fancy
leads them, with a spot about twenty feet square, which, by iron instruments and steel wedges,
they break into slabs or fragments of from one hundred to five hundred pounds weight. In this
way they sink to the diamond bed, which is fifteen or twenty feet under the surface: this bed
extends round the whole hill, and is as regular in its thickness and extent as the other
unproductive beds in the same place; it consists of a conglomerate, composed of rounded
silicious pebbles, quartz, chalcedony, and jasper of different colours from white to black. The
cement appears to be a kind of clay approaching to wacke in its appearance, and is very small in
quantity: thus it appears that the diamond bed is of the same nature with the rocks both above
and below it, but it is distinguished from them by its superior harness. The darker colours, as
black, leek green, and brown prevail in some pieces; in others the lighter colours, as white, grey,
and brick red, are the prevalent ones. Some of the pebbles, when broken, have a pellucid
appearance, others exhibit arborizations or dendritical figures. (See plate III.)
This bed is seldom more than a foot in thickness; it is intimately connected with the beds
both above and below it, and frequently differs from them in nothing but the greater quantity of
pebbles which it contains. The nature of this bed determines the workmen either to uncover the
whole, and work in open day, or to drive a gallery for a little way under the rock. This last
method is had recourse to when the diamond bed is of trifling thickness, but very productive.
It is obvious that the nature of these hills is quite similar to that of the earthy diamond
mine described in a former part of this tract; the constituents are the same in both cases, the
whole difference lies in the cohesion. Here the pebbles are cemented together into a stone, while
in the mines formerly described they lie loose in the state of gravel.
The diamonds found here are of an inconsiderable size, but usually in crystals; and I dare
say they would be all found crystallized if another mode of extracting them were adopted. Those
found in the earthy beds are mostly large, and less frequently of a regular form. This difference
seems to depend upon the local situation. We may either suppose that the diamonds in the loose
beds have been so long water-worn as to have been deprived of their angles, while those in the
stony bed have not been subjected to so much attrition: or if such an explanation be inadmissible,
we must suppose that in one case the crystalization has taken place so slowly as to constitute
regular figures, while in the other case it has been hurried and rapid, and has produced figures
destitute of regularity. There is something in the crystallization of the diamond which
distinguishes it from all other crystals: the faces are all curvilenear, while in every other species
of mineral all curves seem to be constantly excluded: are we to ascribe this difference to any
thing peculiar to the diamond itself, or to the slowness with which the crystallization was
effected? At present we can have no accurate ideas on the subject, because we are not
acquainted with any substance capable of holding carbon in solution, and of course cannot show
the particular circumstances under which its crystalization took place. That some solvent of the
diamond exists we have every reason to believe, from the way in which that stone occurs, but it
would be useless to speculate on the subject till that solvent shall be discovered.
In no place, as far as my information goes, is more than one diamond bed found under the
same surface; but this bed frequently varies in its depth within a very limited distance. Near
Cuddapah it is within three or six feet of the surface. At Mallavilly and Partēl, in the
Masulipatam district, its depth is twenty feet; while at Banaganpilly it varies from ten to twenty
feet in a very small extent of ground.
The mass containing the supposed diamonds is carefully cleared from the portions of the
roof and floor of the mine that may be adhering to it; it is then carried to another spot of ground,
where it is broken in pieces and gradually reduced by means of iron instruments to the size of
very small gravel. It is evident that many diamonds must be broken by this mode of proceeding;
indeed it is rather surprising that so many are procured in this way in regular crystals: the process
followed for separating the diamonds from the rubbish is almost the same as that observed in
other places. The portion wanted for immediate use is wetted, spread thinly upon a piece of
ground about twenty feet square, over which the workmen go several times on their hands and
knees, not losing or neglecting a fragment of diamond worth a penny: the moistening of the
gravel is requisite to render the diamond conspicuous. The most common figures which I have
seen the diamond assume are the double pyramid, the dodecahedron, and the lens.
The labourers here, owing probably to the small value of the diamonds, are under still
less controul than even at Cuddapah; they are of the lowest order of Hindoos, called chucklers*;
but from their occupation they are usually called hill people.
Even the better, sort of people here, those, I mean, who employed workmen, displayed a
very odd turn of mind. They allowed me to take as much as I pleased from any of their heaps of
unsearched gravel, or from the diamond bed; but they absolutely refused to give any of it away
with their own hands. They did not, however, reject the present of money, which I though it
right to give them.
There are more places in this vicinity where diamonds are found, either in a stony bed or
in loose gravel. Some of these are worked, or have been worked in former times. The natives do
not scruple to assign periods of thousands of years since the commencement of some of these
workings. At present it is customary with these miners to go to the Kishnah, in the hot season,
when the waters are lowest, and to spend the rest of the year in these mountain mines.
The diamonds of this place are bought up by merchants, who carry them to Madras, or to
other places, where they are chiefly used in cutting those of a larger size. The large crystals
would I conceive, answer the European market, and might be cut into brilliants. For a carat
containing five or six diamonds of the finest water, they ask seven rupees.
I have now stated all the facts that have come to may knowledge respecting the situations
in which diamonds are found in India. I regret that they furnish so little light respecting the
formation in which this gem was originally deposited. For all the diamond mines which I have
seen can be considered as nothing else than alluvial soil. Nor is it easy to form an accurate notion
of the kind of rock from which the pebbles constituting that soil originated. We find among
them stones belonging to primitive rocks, and others, which are peculiar to the newest floetz trap.
The strong bed at Banaganpilly has some faint resemblance to amygdaloid; but the exact
similarity of its constituents to the other loose beds in which diamonds occur, renders it
impossible for us to consider it as a true amygdaloid. I have never had an opportunity of seeing
the various diamond mines situated beyond the Ganges. An accurate examination of them would
enable us to determine whether diamonds are ever found many where else than in alluvial soil;
for, in Brazil, it would appear, from the accounts of Mr. Mawe, that they are found in a situation
similar to that in the Dekan.
TRACT IV.
Roots.
Sanscrit Names. Telinga Names. Linnæan Names.
Leaves.
Flowers.
Seeds.
Milk Plants.
The Weights in common use among the Hindoo Physicians on the Coast are:
1 Paddy grain………… 1 grain
1 Gulighintsa…………. 2 grains
1 Sanam……………… 13 grains
1 Pagoda……………….. 54 grains
1 Pallam……………… 10 pagodas weight
Long Measure.
1 Ashdakam……….. 8 paddy grains or 1 finger……… 3 inches
6 Fingers……………. 1 shadankulam or 6 fingers….. 18 ditto
2 Shadankulam 1 dwada sankulam or witastihy, 12 fingers, 36 inches, 1 yard
12 Witastidwa………… 1 aratny, 24 fingers…… 72inches… 2
yards
Aratnydwa…………. 1 kishkuhu, 48 ditto……… 4 yards
Kishkuhadwa……….. 1 danahū, 96 ditto………… 8 yards, or 1 p. 2½
yards
1000 Danāhū……………….. 1 danusahasram………….. 4 m. 4 fur. 2 poles
2 Danusahasram………. 1 cros (coss)
2 Paruwoo……………… 1 cros
2 Coss…………………. 1 gawutchy
4 Paragu…………………. 1 Amda
4 Amdas…………………. 1 yojanum*
Medical authors commonly speak of dried substances, as dry leaves, roots, &c.
when these substances are used in their fresh state a double quantity to that prescribed
should be employed. This is called dvicūneam. On the contrary, when they avowedly
speak of green substances, if these cannot be procured, we may substitute the dried bodies
in their stead, but in that case we must employ only one half of the quantity prescribed.
But it is only practicable to administer a double quantity of fresh substances in lieu of the
prescribed quantity of the dried bodies, when the original quantity prescribed does not
exceed an ounce. There is indeed one author, namely, Charakachārlu, who advises to
double in such circumstances doses as large as a palam. But he only ventures to
recommend this when treating of the leprosies.
According to the country in which the several authors have lived and written, they
have made the palam of different weights. According to some it contains eight, according
to others twelve pagodas weight. Others, probably from mere whim, altered them
according to their own fancy.
A sīr is to be six inches wide and twelve inches deep. This is called a
magadaprasdam, and two of them are denominated a loukīka prasdam.
If it be considered better to weigh medicines than to measure them, in that case ten
palams weight is to be reckoned equivalent to a seer. A certain author computes
magadaprasdam to be equal to thirty-two palams.
Rasaha means the fresh expressed juice of vegetables, obtained either by chewing
fresh vegetables, or by pounding them. A little water may be added if they should contain
too small a quantity of natural juice to be expressed. Plants from open places, that have
been much exposed to the sun, are the best and most efficacious for these purposes.
Kalkaha is the powder of well dried plants. It may be made into pills or given in
substance, or may be mixed with different kinds of medical potions. The common tripala
kramam will serve as an example. It is composed of myrobolans, three parts; tādy
(terminalu spec.), sic parts; and wuseriky (phylanthus emblica), twelve parts. These
ingredients being reduced to powder are mixed with water and given.
Sītaha is a cold infusion, composed of one part of a dry ingredient, and twelve parts
of a liquid. It must be allowed to stand soaking a whole night. It has but little medicinal
efficacy.
Srutaha, kashaiam, and pāndaha are decoctions. Two seers of water are usually
required for every handful of dry ingredients. It is to be boiled down to one-fourth of its
bulk.
Pāndaha*. The ingredients must be cut into small pieces and out into a clean
earthen pot, round the short neck of which an iron wire is to be fastened, in order to move
it with ease from the fire. The proper quantity of water being poured over them must be
allowed to soak for some hours in the sun or in a warm place. It is then to be boiled over a
slow smokeless fire. The whole is then to be strained through a cloth and the patient must
take it without smelling, in the way prescribed by the physician.
The evil spirit that presides over the disorder takes his station on the left side of the
patient, and care must be taken that he gets his due portion of the medicine. The cup out of
which the medicine has been taken must be placed on the same side; but to prevent the
spirit from sipping what might remain, and by that means defiling the cup, it must always
be carefully inverted. The patient after taking the medicine may be allowed to chew arrack
nut, beetle, or cloves, caraway or the germ of the tamara, a little sugar, honey or green
gram, but he must not taste water, or milk, or any thing sour.
Some authors lay it down as a rule that, in disorders from wadum, the decoctions
are to be drunk warm; in those from chestum., luke warm; in those from bittum, cold; and
in disorders from a mixed origin (dwandarogam), warm or cold, according to the
prevailing cause.
As patients are apt to grow worse in the night, double doses of medicine should be
given them in the evening. These nightly exaeerbations are owing to the influence of the
moon*, and especially of its beams, which produce injurious effects even on healthy
persons. In such cases some physicians order the medicines to be taken at six o’clock
precisely, others three hours after the patient has taken his meal; while others, having an
eye to the causes of disorders, direct the medicines in wadum to be taken before the meal;
in pittum, during it; and in chestum, after the usual supper.
It is a general rule that medicines ought to be given only twice a day, namely, in the
morning and in the evening; and at both times the same kind of medicine ought to be
administered Ingredients that have been exhausted by boiling should be thrown away, their
contents being nothing g but poison.
According to the nature of the disorder the medicine should be taken out of gold,
silver, or brass vessels. But if these should not be at hand you may use iron or even earthen
vessels.
Ingredients that are added to the decoction after the boiling is over, as syrup, honey,
pippaly, salts, &c. are called brativāpam by the sastrums.
It has been observed that to one part of dry ingredients, sixteen, eight, or four parts
of water are to be taken. But this is meant only as a general rule; for in particular cases it
is the physician’s business to judge both of what quantity of water is required to extract the
efficacious parts from those ingredients, and how long the boiling ought to be continued.
The bottom of the brazen, copper, or earthen vessel in which the decoction is boiled
must be smeared over with cow dung, and for the better managing of it an iron wire is to
be fastened to its neck.
The decoctions made with oil are called tailam, the making and application of which
constitute a great part of a physician’s knowledge. All fluid and solid parts are used to
each other in the same proportion as stated before when speaking of kashaiam. The roots
are first of all to be put into the boiling oil, then the barks, and lastly the leaves. Along with
the oil are often mixed the expressed juices of plants or a kashaiam made with water, &c.
in such cases the name is altered to kashaiatailam or swarasatailam.
Should you wish to make a tailam with the ingredients prescribed for a kashaiam,
you must in that case double the quantity of oil; and you must proceed in the contrary way
if a kashaiam is to be made from the ingredients of a tailam.
According to the nature of the ingredients (whether hard or soft) the quantity of
liquid employed may be either increased or diminished. The same observation applies
likewise to the time required for boiling. Woods often require fourteen day boiling.
Some authors prescribe decoctions made of meat. Sixteen parts of water are
allowed for four of meat, and the water is boiled down to one half. Tailams may be made
by mixing oil with such a decoction, or with milk, or with any liquid whatever. Milk and oil
in such cases must be mixed in equal proportions.
The physician who has to superintend the boiling of a tailam, must sit down on a
plank before the fire, with his face either turned to the south or north, and his eyes fixed
upon the boiling mass, gently stirring it with a spatula to prevent it from sticking to the
bottom or sides of the pot. The fire must be very slow.
The spot round the fire-place must be besmeared over with cow dung, and painted,
according to the Hindoo custom, with chunam and powdered ochre. This part of the
business can only be performed by a virgin, or by the mother of sons whose husband is
alive.; at the same time flowers and rice are to be offered to the immortal gods.
To ascertain when the tailam is sufficiently boiled, a portion must be taken out and
formed into a ball. If the tailam is merely to act by applying it to the nostrils, the boiling
may be stopped when the ingredients have acquired such consistency as to admit of their
being formed into a ball. If the tailam is to be employed for external unctions it ought to
acquire such consistency that the ball formed shall feel between the fingers like wax or
soap; and when it is to be administered internally it ought to be allowed to acquire still
greater consistency.
Some ceremonies are also to be observed when the pot is taken off the fire, and the
tailam strained. A spot of ground is to be measured out, four yards square if the tailam be
intended for Bramins; three yards square if it be intended for Chetries; and two yards if
for Vysias and Soddras. This spot is to be rubbed over with cow dung, and painted with
chunam and ochre. Four tums of paddy are to be heaped up in the middle, and the pot with
the tailam placed upon them. On its left side must be placed a goblet with water, covered
with a clean cloth, and a lamp lighted with ghee; on the north side is to be placed the image
of the god Wikneswaradu*. He is to be worshipped, and the sixteen customary offerings of
rice, milks, and fruits are to be presented to him in order to insure his interest. Round the
whole, heaps of different kinds of grain are to be placed, beginning at the north side with
rice. Obeisance being paid to the heavenly bodies, to the Bramins, and cows, music and
prayers of the Bramins being muttered in honour of the gods, let the tailam be strained
through a new and clean piece of cloth into a new pot. And to hasten the operation it may
be gently squeezed with two sticks.
It is to be considered a bad omen for the life of the patient, if by mistake an old piece
of cloth has been taken for straining the tailam, or if it has formed a burnt crust at the
bottom of the pot.
The dry ingredients, or kalkum, are not to be separated from all kinds of tailams;
but they should be removed in all cases when the patient is a child, weak, or old, or when
his digestion is impaired.
After the oil is strained give part of it to the fire, or the image of the sun, and part to
Wikneswaradu. Then pour it into a gold or silver cup, round the neck of which at clean
cloth is fastened by a string of pearls and precious stones, and thus it is to be kept until it is
wanted for the patient.
In explanation of these ceremonies we must observe that by the prayers and reading
of the Veda by the Bramins, Brahma and Vishnu will be pleased; by the light we conciliate
the favour of Bhagavatadu, or the supreme being; by the heaps of the different kinds of
grain we please the nine heavenly bodies; by the painted ground in particular we gratify
the sun; by the painted goblet, Aswāry, the god of physic; and by the pearls and precious
stones we conciliate the favour of Latchmy Davie, the goddess of riches.
The same ceremonies are likewise necessary when the medicine is to be carried to
the house of the patient. It is to be placed together with the physician upon an elephant,
preceded by music and dancing, and attended by the principal people of the town, and by
Bramins invoking the gods by loud prayers, and reading of the Vedas. Should any of these
ceremonies be neglected from interested motives, the patient will have occasion to repent
the omission; for devils of all descriptions will infallibly defile it, as it is no longer guarded
by these religious ceremonies.
Before the patient takes the medicine, the god of physic is to be worshipped in the
person of his deputy, the physician, who (it is seriously recommended for the good of the
patient ) must be paid will for his services.
The leham, or electuary, is composed of a strong kashaiam of dry powdered
ingredients, and some oil, or ghee, and sugar, or honey. As the boiling of it usually lasts
very long, iron pots are recommended for its preparation. Besides their durability, they
have the advantage of improving the medicinal qualities of the substances boiled in them.
If no iron pot can be procured, an earthen pot may be rendered fit for the purpose, by
boiling in it 100 palams of lead and iron with water, in the same way as if it was a
kashaiam. In boiling a leham, a proper allowance of water is to be made for the quantity
which is absorbed by the pot, and likewise for what is spilt during the boiling.
Some lehams must be boiled for twenty days, without ever allowing the fire to go
out. The longer one wishes to preserve a leham, the more jaggery must be mixed with it.
All decoctions made for the purpose of lehams, must have some Chittramūlum (plantago
zeylanica) or Kuddapa roots among the ingredients. The jaggary must undergo a
purification before it can be mixed with the leham. It is to be dissolved in water and mixed
with the ashes left, with half its weight of tamarind leaves burnt, and boiled down till it
acquires the proper degree of consistency.
_________________
_________________
2. The colour of the face and body. 3. The mode of speaking. 4. The eyes. 5. The
stools. 6. The urine. 7. The tongue.
II. In wadum, the abdomen is warm to the touch; in pittum, it is extremely hot,
changing from that to a cold temperature. In chestum the body is always a little cold; and
the temperature of the valetudinarian varies constantly from warm to cold.
III. The colour of the skin, in wadum is blackish; in pittum, it is yellowish, or red; in
chestum it is pale and whitish; and in the valetudinarian, variegated.
IV. The voice in wadum is natural; neither too weak nor too strong, and of a middle
tone. In pittum it is strong, high, and sharp. In chestum it is like that of a man whose
throat is compressed. In a man who is constantly sickly, the voice is variable.
V. In wayuvu* the eyes have a blackish tint, which likewise indicate a constant
head-ach. They eyes in pittum are reddish and burning, and sometimes of a greenish hue.
In chestum, they are pale and whitish; and a matter of that colour is often found to collect
in the corner of the eye. The eyes of those who have a weak constitution are red, or
sometimes greenish.
VI. If we attend to the alvine evacuations, we shall find them, in wadum, to be small
lumps and pieces of a black colour. In pittum, they are like the spittle of those who chew
beetle, red and yellowish. In chestum, they are like flame, and of a whitish colour. In those
who are constantly sickly, they are of several colours and degrees of consistence.
VII. The urine, in wayuvu, is but little coloured, and is discharged with some
difficulty. In pittum, it is red, and often yellow; in chestum, frothy and white.
VIII. The state of the body, with respect to these disorders, may be judged of by
dropping gingelie oil upon the urine, while in a state of rest. When the drop extends into a
circular form, it indicates wadum; when it divides into many small circles, it points out
pittum; and when it produces small air bubbles, chestum. When the drop sinks to the
bottom, it indicates sanny wadum, or a state of the utmost debility.
IX. Another mode of discovering the state of the body from the urine, is to expose a
portion of it to the sun till it grows quite warm, and then to drop some oil upon it from the
extremity of a straw. If the oil extends itself on
Dodawattudel. Nocturnal pollutions.
Ashādy. Drowsiness.
Maidanadel. Pain over the whole body.
Weesimanshanittel. Yellow eyes.
III. From chestum, which signifies liquids and slime, are derived twenty diseases, of
which the following are the most remarkable.
Udivium veluttel. Paleness of the blood.
Ullival perudel. Expectoration of much slime.
Adoroniveluttel.; Paleness of the blood.
Anninattarittel. Swelling of the tongue, in a manner that prevents speaking.
Dundanshalgerel. A strong catarrh.
Dumbel. Frequent sneezing.
Makkaraittel. Obstruction of the nose.
Areaporamaegam. A white flegm going off together with the urine.
Yrunay. Coughing.
Kainshivasum. An asthmatic respiration.
Kadutta. A sensation of the limbs, as if they were bruised.
Ongievalarumutta durramum. Strong growth of the hair of the head.
Salamalamkarittel. An inclination to make frequent urine, and diarrhœa.
Dalaikarakaraittel. Itching on the head.
Bulaiwaishilandigle. The itch.
Subdivisions of Kuntas.
2 Ara kuntas.
4 Pātika.
8 Paraka kuntas.
1. Kunta, or 4096 square feet, are equal to} 16 Vīssum kuntas.
32 Aravīssum kuntas.
64 Kāny vīssum kuntas.
128 Arakāny kuntas.
256 Parakāny kuntas*.
To find the number of kuntas in a square, add the number of bamboos of two
opposite sides, multiply the amount by that of the two opposite sides, likewise add
together, and divide the product by four. The quotient will be the number of kuntas which
the square contains. Or, take half the amount of two of the opposite sides, and multiply it
by half the amount of the two others: the product will be the number of kuntas.
A Table for finding out the Area of a Piece of Ground below the Size of a Kunta.
Length of the field. Breadth. Area.
½ bamboo or 32 feet ½ bamboo or 32 feet is 1 patika kunta or ¼
kunta
½ …………. 32 ……… ¼……………16…………. 1 paraka ditto……⅛
ditto
½……………32……………. ⅛…………… 8…………. 1
vissum………….1/16 ditto
½……………32……………… 3/16…………. 12…………...1 ditto ara ditto ditto
or 3/32
½……………32…………… 1/16…………. 4…………….1 aravissum……………
1/32
¼……………16…………… ¼……………16……………1
vissum………………………. 1/16
¼…………... 16…………… 1/16………….. 4……………1
kany………………………….1/64
¼……………16…………… 1/64…………. 1……………1
parakaney………………….. 1/256
¾……………48…………… ¾…………… 48……………9 vissum
kunta………………..1/16
¾……………48…………… 3/16………….. 12…………2 ditto ditto and 1 kany ditto
or 9/ 64
¾……………48…………… ⅛…………… 8………….1 ditto ditto and 2 ditto ditto
or 6/64
¾……………48…………… 1/16………….. 4………….3 kany ditto or
………………… 3/64
¾……………48…………… 3/64………….. 3……2 ditto do. And 1 parakany kunta
or 9/256
¾……………48…………… 1/32………….. .2……6 parakany ditto or
…………………..6/256
¾……………48…………….1/64……………1……3 ditto ditto or
………………………..3/256
¾……………48…………….1/228……………½…
1½………………………………………1/384
3/16…………..12…………….3/16…………….12…
9………………………………………...9/256
⅛…………… 8……………..⅛…………….. 8….1 kany ditto or
………………………...1/64
1/16…………...4……………. 1/16…………… 4… 1 parakany ditto or
…………………..1/256
1/64………….. 1……………..1/64……………. 1….1 ghokarakany ditto
or………………1/1024
The north side of a field is measured by going from the lower end of the field
upwards. The lift hand side is called east, the right hand side is west, and when you turn
back again and go in the opposite direction you face the south. *
If two sides of a quadrangle are of equal, and two others of different lengths, the
figure is called a dursamum.
An equilateral parallelogram is called a samachetaru. And oblong rectangle
ayetuchetaru.
A trisamum is a square, three sides of which are of equal lengths.
A wishamachetaru is a square, all the sides of which are of different lengths.
In order to find the number of kuntas in an equilateral parallelogram take half the
amount of the bamboos of the north and south sides, and multiply it by half the amount of
the east and west ides. The product will be the number required. In the same way find the
number of kuntas in the wishama, trisama, ayetuchetaru and dursamum*.
Dwisamam.
Rule. Multiply the longest of the four sides by either of the adjoining sides, do the
same with the two remaining sides. Add the products. Half this sum is the area required†.
Wishama.
Add the two smallest sides, and multiply half their amount by the longest, the
product is the area.
Lokūnis are called those pieces of ground that are in the middle of a field, and for
some reason to be deducted from the whole. If they squares, measure them according to
the rules already given, and deduct them from the field in which they are comprised. The
same rule applies to the weluchuni, or piece of ground lying on one or more sides, and to be
deducted‡.
Mūkōnam, a triangle, of which there are three different kinds.
Rule. Multiply the base by half the perpendicular height, or the perpendicular
height by half the base, the product is the areas.
Walyacruty (the circle). Multiply the diameter by three, the product will be the
circumference. Multiply half the circumference by the radius, the product is the area‡.
Or multiply the circumference by the diameter, deduct a fourth part of the product,
the remainder is the area.
Maddala acruty chetram and damrugapu.
Double the diameter going through the middle A, add to it the diameter of the two
extremities B, c, divide the amount by four, multiply the quotient by the diameter of the
length D, the product gives the area.
Figure
Ardha chendrika. The half moon.
Add the segment A to the distance B, multiply the amount by the same distance B:
half the product is the area.
Senka.
Deduct half the amount of the short diameter from the long diameter, square the
remainder; do the same with half of the short diameter, and add the two products together.
Multiply the amount by three. Divide this product by four. The quotient is the area.
Figure
There is a number of other figures, and rules to find their contents; but I omit them
as equally uninteresting and incurious.
Bijah Prămānum* Kimmuru and
Polnad†.
]
*These seeds are sown together on the same ground, and as they get ripe at different times easily separated.
TRACT VII.
TRACT VIII.
SULPHUR is usually found in abundance in the neighbourhood of volcanoes. It
oecurs likewise combined with iron, copper, lead, and severaī other metals; but in India it
is a very uncommon production. Excepting iron pyrites, I have not observed any other
mineral that contains it. Once indeed, as I understand from a very respectable authority, a
large lump of very fine brimstone was found at Candapilly, in the trunk of a margosa tree,
that had been torn up by lightning, and, as was supposed, shattered to pieces. Being aware
of this scarcity of sulphur in India, I was not a little astonished, when in the northern
Circars in 1808, a substance in powder, or in small piece, evidently sulphur, was shown me;
and when I was informed that it had been collected on the bank of the Godavery.
The place to which I was directed is not far from Maddepollam and Ammalapore,
known for the manufacture of fine long cloth, which is carried on to a very great extent: the
circumstance was unknown to all with whom I conversed. My guide, however, convinced
me of the truth of his assertion, by conducting me to a small village about twelve miles east
from Ammalapore, called Sūra Sāny Yanam, and belonging to Bommadāram muta, one of
the Peddassore Rajah’s districts: close to it is a lake, at the bottom of which the sulphur is
deposited. This lake is narrow, but extends several miles in length from south to north, and
seems every where to be very shallow. At its southern extremity it communicates with a
branch of the Godavery; it is connected also with a salt water creek, from which it receives
its water in the rainy monsoon.
In the warm season it is nearly dry, and the mud then exhales a disagreeable smell
which I thought had some faint resemblance to that of sulphureted hydrogen gas.
The first excursion that I made was to a place due west of the village. Here my
guides went trampling through the water, and taking up occasionally a handful of mud,
which, on examination, had a faint smell of sulphur, but did not at all resemble that
substance in appearance which had been shown me some weeks before, and which had
induced me to undertake this expensive expedition.
Under the full impression of disappointment I was setting out on my return to the
village in my palankīn, scarcely observing that it was surrounded by a number of
inquisitive visitors, when on a sudden my attention was caught by the clamorous
vociferation of a woman in pursuit of my palankīn bearers, who had robbed her little
garden of a pumpkin. She appealed to the renter for protection, but he, like many in his
situation, magnanimously made a present of it to the strangers who were carrying it off in
triumph: unluckily for them however, I interfered, and ordered my boys to restore the
article stolen. This brought on a slight but friendly altercation between me and the renter,
which ended on the payment of the pumpkin, and an offer of all the bystanders to conduct
me to the place where they collected the sulphur.
In consequence of this offer I followed a man, whom they immediately procured, to
the northern extremity of the lake, where we found, without much searching, sulphur in
small heaps, and in tolerable abundance. I was told that it may be found still farther
northwards, and likewise in small quantities at the southern extremity, where the lake gets
soonest dry. It is collected in a loose soft form, or in semi-undurated nodules of a greyish
yellow colour, of a very strong sulphuric smell, and never at a greater depth than a foot
from the surface of the ground on which the water stands.
This salt lake, I understood, is but of recent formation: fifty years ago it was a
cultivated field. The country, for many miles in all directions, is quite plain, not even a hill
is to be seen within fifty miles; stones of all kinds are nearly as scarce, except some
indurated marl which I found in the bed immediately under the superficial bed. The soil
all over this part of the country is either a rich red clay mixed with vegetable mould, which
renders it very productive, or it is the black cotton ground, under which is always found a
bed of marl. This is he kind of soil which exists on the spot where the lake stands.
Earthquakes are entirely unknown here, and volcanic products not to be found.
It may be alleged, perhaps, that the sulphur has been deposited by the Godavery
river, with one of the smaller branches of which it is connected; or that it has been thrown
up by the sea, with which also it joins. But these explanations are quite unsatisfactory,
because sulphur is never found in any of the other numerous branches of the Godavery,
nor is it thrown up out of the sea in any of the other creeks or inlets on the spot. We are,
therefore under the necessity of supposing that it existed in solution in the lake, and that it
is separated and thrown down by some process of nature which has not yet been
ascertained.
I tried the effect of a few reagents upon the water of the lake, in order to form some
idea of the substances which it held in solution. These traials were the following.
Neither nitric nor sulphuric acid produced any sensible effect.,
Soda immediately precipitated a copious white sediment.
Oxalic acid produced a copious precipitate.
Muriate of barites likewise occasioned a plentiful precipitate.
These experiments are sufficient to show that the waters of the lake contained no
sulphureted hydrogen gas, which indeed was sufficiently obvious from its having no smell;
they show likewise that it contained a considerable quantity of sulphate of lime. Common
salt was obviously present, as the lake communicated with the sea. The only inference that
can be drawn from these facts is, that the sulphuric acid of sulphate of lime was
decomposed by some unknown agent, and the sulphur deposited. Can decayed vegetable
matters produce this effect when in contact with sulphate of lime and water, and assisted
by the high temperature of the climate of India? I am much inclined to believe the
possibility of such a decomposition: at al events the subject deserves farther inquiry.
TRACT IX.
IF the mode followed at this place were the same as that practiced in the northern
Circars, it would be unnecessary to describe it here, as I have already given an account of
that process in the Oriental Repertory; but as it is materially different, is much simpler,
less expensive, and more rapid, I conceive that a short description of it will be attended
with some utility.
The works or furnaces are under a banyan tree*, near a village called Yeragutty,
about four miles south from Satghur. The workmen are only three, from three separate
families, who live in constant dread lest they should be pressed for the purpose of carrying
burdens for strangers from one village to another, a thing which often happens in the very
season when it is in their power to employ their time to most advantage to themselves. As
they are exposed to the inclemency of the weather, without any other shelter than the shade
of a tree, they can only smelt iron in the driest season of the year, from the beginning of
January to the end of March. In the wet season, or immediately after the rains, they are
employed in collecting the ore, which is a fine black sand found in small rivulets or nullahs
that derive their source from the neighbouring mountains. This ore is covered by a fine
silicious sand, and when this sand is removed the ore may be procured in any quantity.
The furnaces are made of red loam mixed with sand, and consist of two parts. The
lower and larger is about three spans high, and a foot in diameter, quite cylindrical, and
erected over a hole in the ground, about four inches deep; its sides are every where about
two inches thick. The upper part is conical, with the higher portion of the cone reversed. It
is about eighteen inches high, and at the opening not quite a foot in diameter. The bellows
are of the kind used by the iron smiths, and made of sheep skin: a hole is left near the
bottom of the cylindrical part of the furnace to receive their nozzle. A representation of
this furnace may be seen in plate IV. Figure 1.
In order to smelt iron, they cement the two parts of the furnace with some loam, and
fill the bottom part of it with charcoal: this being ignited, they put upon them, with a flat
plate made of basket work, one sīr of iron sand, which they cover with four plates of
charcoal. After blowing with the bellows for a quarter of an hour, they add another sīr of
iron sand, and four plates of charcoal. The third time they add 2½, sīr of ore, and five
plates of charcoal; the fourth time one sīr of sand and four plates of charcoal, and the fifth
and last time, one sīr of sand and four plates of charcoal, and the fifth and last time, one sīr
of sand and four plates of charcoal. During the interval between each of these additions,
which is nearly a quarter of an hour, the bellows are instantly plied. This produces
sufficient heat, if not to melt the iron, at least to soften it and conglutinate it with the dross,
and at the end of the operation it is found in a solid mass at the bottom of the furnace:
water is then thrown upon it, and while yet hot it is cut in pieces, which, however, are not
entirely separated from one another. In this state it is sometimes sent to the market, but
more commonly it is put a second time into the fire, and subjected to the action of the
hammer. By this process sit loses two sevenths of its weight, which is usually seven sīr, and
in that state a piece of one sīr weight sells at a quarter of a rupee.
As they usually smelt three times a day, they can make about three hundred and
sixty pieces, selling at forty rupees. This is all that they get for their labour and skill, and all
that they have for the support of three families during the course of a year.
which the process is conducted, and the small degree of heat applied, we may safely
conclude that part of the iron remains in a state of oxide in the dross, and that another part
is lost among the charcoal. The iron thus produced by the first operation is of a very
inferior quality, being porous, full of dross and charcoal, and so brittle, that parts of it may
be easily knocked off As the quantity of sand used amounts to nine sīr, and produces seven
sīr, or when freed from dross five sīr, we must allow this to be one of the richest iron ores,
for in the careless manner in by a few strokes of the hammer: it is in fact what is called cold
short iron. This state is doubtless produced, in part at lest, by the small degree of cohesion
of its integrant particles, though it may likewise be owing in part to the presence of
charcoal: by repeated heating and hammering it becomes perfectly malleable and fit for all
purposes.
The ore from which it is made is the iron sand of mineralogists, a sub-species of
micaceous iron ore. It is attracted powerfully by the magnet like iron filings, except a few
particles which occur in small blunt grains, and which are probably iserine, as that species
of ore of titanium was found by Dr. Thomson mixed with the iron sand of the river Don in
Scotland. The colour of the iron sand is deep iron black; some grains of it are particularly
shining with a luster almost metallic, and these break with a conchoidal fracture: with
acids it does not effervesce, and consists in fact of the black oxide of iron probably united to
some titanium. The specific gravity lies between 3 and 3.5: the same kind of sand occurs
likewise in some places along the shore. From some of these places the specimen,
mentioned by Kirwan as coming from the East Indies, was probably taken.
The iron sand mentioned by Lenz is probably of the same kind, or differs only in its
cohesion; but he affirms that it yields ninety per cent of pure iron, which I conceive to be a
mistake. If his account were to turn out true, it is obvious that his iron oxide would be the
protoxide of iron, for which chemists have been hitherto searching in vain.
I conceived the great fusibility of this ore to be owing to the presence of manganese,
though I was not able to determine the point by a few imperfect experiments which I
attempted: the want of the proper reagents would have prevented me from undertaking a
regular analysis, even if I had possessed the requisite skill; but from the analysis of Dr.
Thomson it appears, that this ore contains only oxide of iron.
To account for the place of nativity of this rich ore, as well as for the great quantity
in which it is found, we have only to examine the nearest mountains. These mountains, in
this part of the Carnatic from Vellore to the Ghauts, consist of a sienite composed of
quartz, felspar, and hornblende: the hornblende contains a great proportion of particles, I
conceive, of the iron sand. The sienitic hills have a more rugged aspect than the granitic
mountains, and it has a kind of appearance of being composed of very thick horizontal
strata: this is most perceptible in the highest and most naked rocks; as for example on
Kailasghur, the highest hill about Vellore, from which it lies in a south westerly direction;
even at a considerable distance its strata are discernible, we find them six feet broad and
upwards. They are apt to split into smaller masses, and even to undergo disintegration:
they usually crack in a perpendicular direction, and we seldom discover two large masses
contiguous to each other, without finding a close resemblance in their surfaces, and that at
some preceding period they had been united. Hence the origin of the curious and romantic
masses of stones that we often see, with small bases resting upon much smaller stones or
suspended upon he point of a rock, and threatening destruction to every beholder. The
great degree of heat to which the naked rocks are exposed, in the sultry climate of India,
and the sudden change of temperature produced by a shower of rain, may contribute
considerably to the dis-integration, and the consequent rugged appearance of these hills.
But this cannot be the only cause, otherwise the granite mountains would be equally liable
to decomposition, which is not the case. The structure of the stone seems to be the
principal cause it enables the stone cutters to separate large masses by means of a few blunt
wedges driven into holes, made in the direction in which they wish to divide the stone.
Plate V. represents a hill in the Tondimans country, remarkable for the great
number of detached masses of stones which lie about its summit.
The disintegration takes place chiefly on the surface of the large masses which we
find every where scaling off: the smaller stones are frequently affected throughout their
whole mass. This property I ascribe to the great quantity of iron, nearly in the metallic
state, which exists in the hornblende. When this iron is exposed to the air it attracts oxygen,
and loosens, in consequence, the firmness of the whole mass: it is to the complete
disintegration of this rock, that the fertile valleys of the Carnatic or Palliam owe their soil
near the granite mountains the soil is sandy and barren, because that rock is not
susceptible of the same rapid and comple disintegration.
These hills, with a very few exceptions indeed, run north and south, and they may
be considered as having once been more intimately connected with the Ghauts, which
intersect the peninsula of Hindostan: they make their first appearance a few miles on the
east side of Arcot. There are indeed some hills near Madras, but I rather consider them as
unconnected with those of which we are speaking, as they have a fourth ingredient, garnets,
which I have not observed near the Ghauts; they contain likewise hornblende slate.
The usual colour of the most entire sienite is a fine silvery white, mixed with fine
black particles. Its specific gravity, tried in water of the temperature of 800 is 2.6. This
triple aggregate is very unequal in the proportion of its constituents in different places.
Sometimes one and sometimes another of them is most abundant. In some places we find
large masses of each of the constituents in a state of purity, without any mixture of any of
the other substances of which the rock in general is composed. The quartz is usually white,
and reddish yellow in those pieces that are in a state of dis-integration. Hence the red
gravel at the bottom of the Vellore hill, and at the foot of all the mountains in this district.
It is found likewise of other colours, especially various shades of grayish blue; but a dirty
white is every where the prevailing colour. Its fragments sometimes affect a rhomboidal
form. The fracture is usually splintery and compact; sometimes in the large it is slaty. I
have no where observed quartz crystals in any granitic or sienitic mountains, though I have
seen them in abundance in rocks of a later date. Along with these crystals occur amethysts,
and emery, and floor spar, and in the same places corundums are found. What is called
emery in India seems to me to be nothing but an aggregate of garnets; for its specific
gravity, colour, and hardness, exactly correspond with that of the real garnet.
The felspar often traverses the rock in veins. In such cases it disintegrates very
readily, and is converted into clay. About Sātghur, and at the foot of the
Peddanaigdurgum pass, it is found of a red colour in large masses, mixed more or less with
quartz, often in a sound state; but more frequently decaying. But the silver white is the
prevailing colour of the felspar in the soundest and most equally mixed sienite. Sometimes
it passes into compact felspar.
The third ingredient is a species of hornblende, which I conceive to contain an
unusual quantity of iron, and on that account would be disposed to distinguish it by the
name of ferrilite. It occurs chiefly mixed in small quantities with the other ingredient
which forms the sienite. Its fracture is uneven or undulating lamellar, and often
resembling mica, from which it is distinguished by its superior hardness, by its streak, and
by its fracture. It is very much given to disintegration; and this is probably the reason why
the sienite in the Carnatic is so apt to decay. In large masses it traverses the rock in veins,
or occurs in it massive, from the size of a hazel-nut to that of a tun or more.
The veins frequently traverse the rock of an uniform breadth for many hundred
yards. Their width varies from two to five feet of upwards. These veins occur in many
parts of the country, seemingly quite unconnected with the sienite; as for example, near the
cavalry cantonments at Arcot.
When this mineral is exposed to the influence of the atmosphere, it is always covered
with an ochrey brown crust. Internally it is black, luster shining, and semi-metallic.
Opaque; Longitudinal; Fracture even, and when closely examined fine foliated. The cross
fracture frequently exhibits to the naked eye fine columnar crystals, intimately, but
irregularly and scantily, mixed with the mass. The specific gravity lies between 3 and 3.09;
the temperature of the water in the two traials made being 780 and820. when this stone is
decomposing its specific gravity is reduced to k2.6. in that state it has a dull colour, a slaty
fracture, and a greyish or ochrey appearance, and breaks easily in pieces. When reduced
to a fine powder it has a blackish green colour, and is attracted by the magnet.
There is a variety containing white dots, probably of quartz, which is harder than
the more common kind, perhaps on account of the quartz mixture in it. The fracture of
this variety is more splintery. When disintegrating it is more gritty and sandy. Its
hardness is that of quartz. It differs in some other respects from the common hornblende,
especially in containing an unusual proportion of iron.
I do not suppose that our ore is derived from the large masses of the rock, but
rather from the disintegrated hornblende, in which, I suppose, these minute grains of iron
sand are mixed in abundance. Bu the heavy falls of rain, we may suppose that many half
disintegrated stones of sienite are broken in pieces by being forced along by the torrents
and driven with violence against each other. Thus its particles are gradually reduced to
sand and deposited according to their specific gravity. The iron sand, being the heaviest,
sinks lowest, and the comminuted quartz and felspar cover it. Those portions of the iron,
that are mixed with the hornblende in the state of peroxide, are probably washed away
with the water in a state of fine mud, and are either carried to the sea or deposited on the
fields, to which they communicate the red colour so common in those countries where this
kind of sienite prevails.
It probably requires a long time, and a concurrence of many favourable
circumstances, to dispose the large masses of this stone to disintegrate. For we often find
some of it in the soundest state, close by others very far advanced in decay; and the
lingums*, usually made of this stone, are but seldom found encrusted with ochre, though
this crust covers all the stones that we find lying at the bottom of the mountains. The purer
the stone the less apt it seems to disintegrate.
To see whether the smaller particle of the well-mixed sienite contained iron sand, I
reduced a portion of it to powder, and had the satisfaction to find that it was attracted by
the magnet, though for obvious reasons not so powerfully, as the iron sand itself.
The only minerals mixed with the sienite, or passing through it in veius, are
hornblende slate, garnets, shorlous beryl †, and pyrites. Sometimes the sienite assumes the
structure and constitution of granite. The hornblende slate is found in immense masses:
large hills of it occur near the mount on the west side of Madras. The principal tracts of
these hills are granitic, very much given to decomposition; and indeed large masses seldom
occur in a perfectly sound state. The hornblende slate seems to consist of pieces from half
an inch to an inch long, united together, probably by a silicious cement. These pieces have
a greenish black colour, their internal luster is silky, they are translucent on the edges,
their longitudinal fracture straight lamellar, their cross fracture striated. They give a
grayish green streak. Their specific gravity varies from 3.1 to 3.2. Their hardness does not
much exceed that of fluor spar. This hornblende slate seems also to contain abundance of
iron; but it is not nearly so apt to undergo disintegration as the common hornblende. It
contains many garnets; there are large quarries of it west from Madras, which supply that
city with black stone so frequently seen there. I have no doubt that it would take a fine
polish.
We frequently find the shorlous beryl, though never in any great masses, mixed with
the sienite of the Carnatic, either in place of the hornblende or as a fourth ingredient. I
found considerable specimens of it on the Sātghur hills, forming more than one half of the
stony aggregate into which it enters. I found it likewise at the Peddanaigdūrgum pass in a
nullah, near the encampment of the pioneers, where it is mixed chiefly with red felspar and
a little quartz. It occurs in almost all the mountains of the Carnatic in small quantities,
forming a kind of incrustation upon the other minerals of which the mountain is
composed. At first sight it bears great resemblance to quartz, having the same dull lustre
and hardness, but on a closer inspection we find it in very small columns or prisms, and
oblong masses of the white yellowish green colour, its lustre shining, opaque, and though
still mixed with quartz and felspar, but constituting the principal ingredient, its specific
gravity is from 3 to 3.09. Hence when quite pure it must be a good deal heavier. The
pieces least mixed with felspar and quarts affect the form of hexangular columns,
truncated at both extremities. The more pure and smaller crystals seem to have the same
form. Acids have not the least effect upon it, and in a moderate heat it does not lose its
colour. These characters, I think, are sufficient to warrant my giving it the name of
shorlous beryl.
Garnets are found in the greatest abundance in an amorphous state, in the
mountains near Madras and Mahavellyporam, mixed with the sienite as well as the
hornblende slate. Between Vellore and the Ghauts I have not observed any garnets
entering into the composition of the sienite, and as far as I recollect they never occur in
pure hornblende. In small pieces of the rock they sometimes, though seldom, form the
prevailing ingredient. The mountains in the Guntur Circar, the Condavir hills, and those
of Condapilly agree, I believe, in their constituents with those of the Carnatic; but they
contain in greater proportion of hornblende, and abound in garnets and what I conceive to
be olivins. In these mountains the garnets are frequently found crystallized.
I have found iron pyrites in small cubic crystals on a mountain called
Kailasghur. In small particles I have observed it at other places.
The real granite into which the sienite passes, or with which it alternates, I
have seen only in large detached pieces. At Mahavellyporam, and afterwards between
Conjeveram and Vellore, whole pagodas and choultries are built of it. It is fine grained
and not quite regularly compounded; though more so than the sienite. The quartz is white,
the felspar silvery white, and the mica in fine black lamellæ. It is not so much given to
decomposition as the sienite, and is much harder. It would probably be found by digging
between Conjeveram and Vellore: in all probability indeed it forms the basis of all the hills
in the Carnatic. I draw this inference from having, in many parts both low and elevated,
at a certain depth under the surface, found the remains of a disintegrating or disintegrated
granite. Near Conjeveram it occurs near some tanks, in the form of a white clay which
adheres strongly to the lips, and near the cavalry cantonments at Arcot in white granular
pieces that crumble between the fingers; and here and there some grains present
themselves which still retain the fracture of felspar. I found likewise in the same heaps
specimens of a beautiful white felspar, in large tabular pieces of a milk white colour, to
which some mica and some quartz adhered. This probably exhibited some traces of the
appearance of the fresh granite, and the great proportion of felspar accounts for its having
been converted by disintegration into clay.
TRACT X.
DESULTORY, BUT WELL MEANING, THOUGHTS ON THE BRITISH
GOVERNMENT IN INDIA.
IT is generally acknowledged that no nation in Europe is better acquainted with the
art of governing than the British. It has been contended, however, by the French, on mere
theoretical principles, that this panegyric does not apply to the management of their
colonies. When we take an attentive view of their astonishing success, and of the security
with which we find they are established in many parts of the globe, but especially in India,
we cannot hesitate to esteem them equally as great legislators in that country as in their
own. For my part, I feel myself both unequal and disinclined to enter upon a discussion of
such a subject. My object is different. It is an anxious wish that the little knowledge which
I have acquired may contribute towards rendering the natives of Indian as happy under
the British Government as I feel myself.
That happiness is ideal, and not real, is a truth with sh9ich I am forcibly
impressed. Still this ideal phantom, when wanted, renders a man as miserable as the
possession of it would produce the contrary effect. Public happiness may be defined the
absence of all grievances either real or imaginary, provided they be felt as grievances. The
art of governing well consists in an equable distribution of those burdens and benefits
which result from a regular government. In order to render the regal power more
agreeable to the people the greatest and most shining share of the beneficial branch of
government is vested in the King or the Supreme Magistrate. Indeed he is the nominal
source of all good. To impose the tax4es, and lay on those burdens which constitute the
disagreeable part of government, is wisely left in Great Britain to the people at large,
through the medium of their delegates. Hence the hatred to which the power that imposes
hardships must be exposed is, therefore, only attached to the instruments employed
individually in the distribution of them.
The only reason why the natives of Hindostan might not think themselves as happy
as the nature of things will admit, under the British Government, is, in my opinion, owing
to the strange division of the forementioned branches of it. The Company has retained to
itself the distribution of evil or the executive power, with the collection of the revenues; but
have left the dispensation of the sweets of a good government to native tributary princes, or
even to their own native servants, who consequently derive the benefit arising from that
situation.
A ryot in the northern Circars, or any other part of the Company’s dominions, will
candidly acknowledge that the collector takes nothing but the Company’s due. This very
action, however, is a grievance in the eyes of a Hindoo, who considers possession as real
right of property, which by his religious laws and principles he is allowed to retain by the
most flagitious and sacrilegious means. The same revenue is exacted by the Zemindar, and
probably in greater proportion to the produce; but it is done in a very different way from
that of the collectors, and under a combination of happier circumstances.
A Zemindar firs tries persuasion; and when he has used compulsion, he
endeavours to sooth the poor ryot, or sub-renter, by attention and flattery, by an
entertainment, or a trifling present. He tells him that all hardship inflicted is merely at the
instance of the Company, who enforced payment of their kists from him with the greatest
rigour. The poor plundered man returns home quite proud of the attention, and pleased
with the conduct of the Rajah. On his arrival he hears the R5ajah praised by the Bramin,
who, probably, have returned home with tumbalas* for their enams, or with pattas †for
new ones. Or he hears him extolled by the enam peons ‡, who boast of the distinction with
which they have been treated, and of the emoluments they derive from the lands which
they cultivate. Or the curnum $ expatiates with exultation on the allowance made by the
Rajah for village expenses. In short, the praises of the darma || Rajah resound from every
mouth.
From the collector the ryot returns with far different sensations,. When the kist is
paid he is dismissed without further ceremony; and comes home brooding over his
imaginary losses. The Bramins of the village, who enjoy enams, are silent; those that have
none (which constitute the greater part) complain; for not even a chance of acquiring any is
left them. The former obtain their tumbalas from the sub-renter, and bless him for it; or,
as I know is the case in the northern Circars, they consider their lands as real property,
insured to them by means of stipulations between the Nizam and the Company.
From the peons, a very numerous class of the middle and lower ranks of people in
India, nothing is heard but complaints, they are not only disregarded but often deprived of
their pikes and daggers, which they consider as the very pride of their existence, and
sometimes also of their enams or privileges which frequently consist in nothing more than
an equal share of the produce of the land which they cultivate; but which are considered by
themselves as maters of great importance.
Here I must advert to the position respecting happiness, with which I began
this Tract. The Hindoo thinks himself happy, if he as well as the other classes of his nation,
especially the Bramins whom he is taught to consider as belonging to a race of beings
superior to himself, and to regard as protecting angels, be permitted to remain in the
undisturbed exercise and enjoyment of their ancient customs and privileges. The Bramin
thinks himself just as much entitles to receive enams and other charitable gifts as the ryot
to a share of the produce of the land which he cultivates. Hence when he does not receive
them he considers himself a injured. Those who enjoy these donations are never reminded
that they are charitable gifts, and of course they are unthankful. Those whose ancestors
did not transmit to them these privileges are convinced that they will never obtain them
from Government*. Hence their loud complaints, and the readiness with which they would
be disposed to support those from whom they might expect a different treatment . they
would unite with pleasure in supporting any upstart rebel, whether he were a Hindoo or a
Moorman. The lower classes, ever influenced and led by the ministers of their religion,
consider the grievances of the Bramins as their own; and as their vanity is never flattered
by the Company’s Government, which alone could induce them to forget their fellow-
subjects, readily join them in lamentations, and would do so likewise in case of a rebellion.
The Bramins in the district of the Zemindar look up to him for charitable gifts, and
are therefore not only ready to support him, but even to prevent a change of
administration, because they know that if the country should become amāny* not the least
chance of obtaining enams is left them.
It is not uncommon for the lands to be partially resumed by the Zemindar, which
enables him to raise his reputation by new gifts, which he fails not to bestow. He takes
from one in order to give to another.
I have often heard them declare that the Company’s amāny administration was
strictly just; but they thought it comparatively not so good as a Moorish Government, and
greatly inferior to a Hindoo one. Under the Moorish, say they, a poor man might by
chance acquire riches, and experience a turn of good luck, of which in the same
Government the richer are often deprived; whereas in the Company’s district none are
plundered, and consequently none by an extraordinary accumulation of favour rise upon
the ruins of others.
If these defects in the British Government in Indian were generally understood,
nothing would be more easy than to remedy them. But I have reason to believe that they
are not understood by those who have the supreme direction of affairs in India. Thousands
of difficulties indeed start up before my eyes, which I do o venture to mention, because they
may, perhaps, be greater in appearance than in reality. Something material, however,
might be done, I conceive, without any further investigation, and founded on the strictest
principles of justice.
Would it not be advisable that enamdārs of all descriptions and in all districts,
whether amāny or under Zemindars, should be publicly announced as under the particular
protection and exclusive authority of Government? Even those who have lately acquired,
or may hereafter acquire, enams from the Zemindar, should be placed in the same
predicament. This would put an effectual stop toe the squandering away of lands, and at
once detach the greatest interest in the country form the Rajahs., the Curnums would
become more independent of the Zemindars, and all accounts would be more open to
investigation. Registers might be o0ened of all enamdārs and enam lands, and those
persons who neglect to have them enrolled should be invariably deprived of them, in favour
of the informers, or others; for, provided they be given away, it signifies not to whom.
To impress the minds of the people with the good intention of Government, printed
puttas should be distributed among all registered as enamdārs, in which the Company is
represented as confirming their enams, so long as they continue dutiful and faithful
subjects. At the same time, it might be made known that all those enamdārs would
invariably be deprived of their enams, who, in the event of a rebellion in any district, do
not immediately repair with their families to such countries as continue in a state of
quietness and attached to the Company. Tumbalas should also be regularly distributed,
expressive of the charity which yearly is renewed to the enam holders.
A certain proportion of uncultivated lands might be allotted for new enams, or for
such Bramins and Chetris as could prove that they had either themselves cleared and
cultivated waste lands, or had encouraged others to do so. By such conduct, I conceive that
the Bramins and Nobles of the country would feel at once that they depended solely upon
Government, and be encouraged to look forward to favours and emoluments for which
there was no opening before.
The consequence of this would be that another and a formidable class of people (I
mean the Peons) would be attached to the interests of the Company., they are looked up to,
by the rest of the natives, as their natural protectors. They are paid by some trifling
enams, or by receiving equal shares of the produce of a certain quantity of their Circar
land; and when they are actually employed, they receive daily batta*. They area proud,
haughty, warlike race, who wield the spear with intrepidity in the day of battle. If they
can be attached to the Company’s interest, nothing is to be feared from foreign or internal
enemies. I allude here only to enam Peons, and not to the common rebels, consisting of
Moormen and other idlers, whose sole property consists in a sword or a match lock; who
readily attach themselves to every upstart, and as readily forsake him. I allude to those
Peons who surround the native Princes; whose principle it is to fall in the field of battle
with their masters, and who are known rather to sacrifice themselves than survive them. I
know it is a favourite maxim to disarm these people; but that can never be effected so long
as a bamboo grows in India, or a pointed plough-share is to be met with in the fields.
Would it not be a wiser policy to conciliate and secure their friendship ? They are all fond
of distinction. If they were publicly declared Circar Peons, under the particular and
exclusive authority of the Company, registered as such, and their enams promised to
themselves and their families so long as they showed themselves faithful servants; if they
were to be assured that they would never be removed from the districts in which they
reside, excepting when they were actually employed in war-by these, and similar modes,
they might be gained in a very short time. Officers might be appointed in every district,
not to drill them, but to become personally acquainted with th4m, and to lead them into the
field when their services were wanted.
Honorary guards might be furnished, out of their number, to the tributary Rajahs,
as they are accustomed to this kind of pageantry. They would serve as an effectual guard
over them, as soon as they were accustomed to look up to a superior power as their
immediate protector.
The great end of all this –the popularity of the present Government with the natives
of India-would be secured; and an army, amounting at least to 100,000, would be organized
on the coast at little or no expense.
It may be said that consanguinity, or relationship, attaches the Peons to the native
Princes. I believe I have heard the observation made; but I do not think it well founded. A
slight review of the casts, or tribes, among whom most of this description of men are found,
will readily convince any person that no such consanguinity can exist.
To this proposal, it may be objected that all alienations of lands are losses to the
revenue, which ought rather to be gradually increased by the resumption of enams to
which no ancient title can be produced. I once thought so myself, and was most assiduous
in hunting after and pointing out all illegal claims; but, upon more mature reflection, I am
of opinion that it would tend more to the advantage of a government so great and powerful
as that of the British in India, were they to be indulgent in this respect, and thus evince that
attention to the real or ideal happiness of their numerous subjects, which, in other respects,
they are so anxious to exhibit. The intention of establishing courts of justice, and of
conferring the property of the lands upon the native princes, may be adduced as striking
instances. But I am sorry to say that they are not such as will contribute, by their effects, to
the happiness of the middle or lower classes of the
natives of India.
TRACT XI.
If its colour, as is frequently the case, should not be of a lively and brilliant tint, the
Malabars have ways of improving it. First, by dipping or steeping it once more in a liquor
made of casah leaves and chayroot; the former mingled with a little gingelie oil. Secondly,
by putting it into a cold infusion of sapan wood (Cæsalpinia sapan). But this method,
though it adds greatly to the beauty of the colour, is a mere trick, as the first washing will
deprive it of all that the sapan wood has communicated.
TRACT XII.
TRACT XIII.
ACCOUNT OF THE IRON WORKS AT RAMANAKAPETTA.
TRACT XIV.
TRACT XV.
CURSORY OBSERVATIONS MADE DURING A TOUR FROM BEZWADAH TO
TIMMERICOTAH.
I HAVE always considered travellers as so liable to be imposed on by their own
imaginations, and by the imperfect information which they obtain from a variety f people,
that I must confess I never could bring myself to rely implicity on the word of my
informers, for any observations made during a short stay of my own at the places which I
happened to visit. Yet I am still of opinion that much valuable information is often
conveyed by travellers. I venture therefore, with the greatest deference, to submit to the
reader the following remarks, which I drew up during an excursion from the banks of the
Kistna at Bezwadah to Timmericotah, and back again to Innacondah. They were made
under too many disadvantages not to require the indulgence of the reader. A connected
series of events, or a regular description of the roads and places passed through, will not be
expected; but merely such detached and desultory observations as opportunity or objects
afforded matter for.
At the village of Bezwadah, I arrived at the latter end of October 1797. Its situation
on the northern banks of the river gives it a romantic appearance, which is aided by many
venerable buildings of ancient towers and pagodas, most of them now in ruins. From it
there is a narrow artificial pass, that leads to Condapilly. This pass, in a military point of
view, was formerly deemed of importance. It lies at the south end of a range of hills which
run up close to the banks of the Kistna. It constitutes a broad commodious road in form of
an arched bridge, cut through a solid rock composed of felspar, mica, garnets, and ochre,
aggregated together. Veins of felspar often run through this rock in oblique or horizontal
directions. Such veins are much harder than the felspar which enters as a constituent into
the rock. The surface of this rock is quite black, owing to the state of the ochre which enters
in such abundance into its composition. The felspar is white, foliated, and appears, when in
large pieces, transversely striated. It is uncommonly soft, and is entirely disintegrated when
long exposed to the air.
Owing to the immense fall of rain, which still in some degree continued, the country
was almost inundated, ad the only roads lay through jonnalu fields, and were almost
impassable.
Roads, in the European sense of the word, scarcely exist in India, at least not in the
northern Circars. Hence, traveling in the wet season is exceedingly troublesome: most of
the paths passing through rice fields, where the palankeen bearers are up to the middle in
water. At all seasons of the year, when we pass through jungles, we must take care not to
lose an eye by the branches of thorny bushes which meet each other in the middle of the
path, and very soon tear a palankeen to pieces. This is the case even in the roads between
the most frequented places, as for example, between Samalcotah and Rajahmundry, and
between Rajahmundry, Ellore, Condapilly, and Hyderabad.
Notwithstanding the profusion of water that had fallen from the clouds, the Kistna
was scarecely half full: a sufficient proof that the size of this river, as well as that of the
Godavery, does not depend upon the rains that fall on this side of the peninsula.
At sunset I arrived at Mundaram, a place situated on the other side of the Kistna,
and about four miles distant from that river. It belongs to the country of a powerful
Zemindar, called Vassareddy. It is populous and pretty large; and what is very seldom to
be seen in Indian, it had a large pagoda building in it. But what particularly attracted my
notice, it seemed to abound with saltpeter earth, and, as far as I could discover, of a much
purer taste that in many places where a manufacture of saltpeter had been established.
This circumstance deserves attention, because the product, and the price of the article,
depend entirely upon the earth from which it is extracted. In appearance there is no
difference between the earth which contains common salt or soda, and that which yields
saltpeter. All equally attract a little moisture during the night, and appear a black soft
dust at the bottom of old walls, or on the streets of populous and old villages. One village,
or even one street, frequently produces all the three different salts: and if proper attention
is not paid to this circumstance, much loss may be incurred in the manufacture of saltpeter.
This I experienced last year at Ellore and other places, and even this year I have been
obliged to throw a great quantity of salt away because it contained too little saltpeter to pay
the expense of refining it. The only circumstance which enables one to determine the
relative goodness of the saltpeter earth is the taste, when it is not practicable to extract a
portion of the salt and determine its nature by crystallizing it.
The country about this place, and indeed the observation applies to the whole
Guntūr Circar, appears to be well cultivated, and the jonnalu (holcus sorghum ) was much
farther advanced than I had observed it on the other side of the river. The soil is black,
and would produce any species of grain whatever, provided it could be watered when
required. But unluckily the bed of the river lies too deep; and after the periodical rains,
which terminate in November, frequently not a drop of rain falls till July, when the rainy
season again commences. On this account rice cannot be cultivated here in any
considerable quantity. During the months of April, May, and June, the whole animal and
vegetable creation suffers so much from want of water, that every thing puts on the
appearance of decay, and the face of nature assumes a wintry aspect.
The scene however very speedily changes. The first rain has scarcely fallen when
the country assumes a different appearance. The finest verdure springs up every where,
the husbandman is every where busily employed in cultivating his fields and his garden, for
which in the Guntūr circar he is well paid; for the jonnalu grows here in good years to the
height of seven or eight feet, and has ears of a span long, and five or six inches in diameter,
and sells at an average for four or five pagodas the candy.
Few trees are to be seen in this neighbourhood, and these few are mostly tamarinds,
growing in large topes, which during the hot months afford a refreshing shelter to the
weary traveler. Mangoes, cocoanuts, and even palmeyras* seem from their scantiness to
be considered as exotics. Indeed none but the latter would thrive without such
extraordinary extension as to preclude the possibility of cultivating them with profit.
The natives if this Circar, as is the case in all places where jonnalu is the principal
food, are a stout healthy people, and of a larger size than those who live chiefly on rice.
This must be owing to the superior nourishing qualities of jonnalu. Even the straw seems
to partake of this valuable quality; for the cattle here, during the dry months, have scarcely
any thing else to live upon: yet the cows and the sheep grow much larger and fatter than in
the Masulipatam and Vizagapatam Circars. The cows, especially, are famous for their size
all over the peninsula, though not for their strength; for as soon as they are put to hard
work, as carrying baggage, drawing guns, &c. they are found much less able to undergo
fatigue than the smaller but hardier bullocks of the Carnatic provinces.
This may be partly owing to a change in their food, to which, in times of war, they
are exposed, and which few animals are able to bear. But it is chiefly owing to the size of
their limbs and bones, which, in comparison with the bulk of their bodies, are very slender.
This last cause was pointed out to me by a Gentleman, high in rank in the civil department,
and a set of obeservations, which I had an opportunity of making during a late tour
through this district, have convinced me that it is perfectly just. As this is a circumstance of
great importance to Government, it were to be wished that steps were taken to cross the
breed with cattle from other countries, especially from the Carnatic. Even the cattle in the
Palnād are much better made, and stouter, than those in the Guntūr Circar.
I intended to have taken Chintapilly in my way to Bellumcondah, but the rainy
season and the badness of the roads obliged me to alter my plan. Chintapilly was built by
the same Zemindar who built Amarēswaram. He was formerly partial to it, and especially
to a small fort (as he chose to call it)which he had on the banks of the Kistna, and in which
it was thought expedient to keep a guard of sepoys. This having given a stab to his pride, he
left the place altogether and built Amarēswaram. This step, however, was not taken
without regret, nor before he had done every thing in his power to get the guard removed.
for his new place was not so agreeably situated, and wanted those charms which are most
attractive to a native of India., it had neither been the residence of his ancestors nor the
place of his birth. I am glad to hear that he has been again put in full possession of his
favourite place.
Bellumcondah, literally translated the sugar hill, is a hill fort about twenty-five
miles west from Guntūr, and sixteen from the Condavier hills. Here the country begins to
assume a hilly aspect. The soil is black, but covered with stones of different kinds. There
are some tanks near this place which furnish water for a few rice fields.
The country is but thinly inhabited, and would be more so were it not for the
intolerable oppression which the inhabitants of the more fertile districts on the other side of
the Kistnah experience from their rulers, the Zemindars*. One would be inclined to
consider this as the most barren of all the countries in the east. The soil around is very
stony, and the whole country covered with a grey dust. But the stones do not appear to
hurt vegetation, as cotton and jonnalu grow pretty well, the former indeed to great
perfection.
A good deal of slatpetre is manufactured in the villages near this place. This is the
only kind of manufactory which the country seems to be capable of supporting with
success. I have observed that this salt is always to be found in greater quantity in villages at
the foot of hills, provided they have the other requisites of soil and population.
The country between this place and Timmericotah, furnishes little worth observing.
It abounds in different kinds of game, as partridges, hares, wild ducks, and teals.
The Palnād, a district belonging (at that time) to the Nabob of the Carnatic, is for
the most part uncultivated, and exhibits scarcely any thing except a continued jungle of
underwood. This is partly owing to the natural disadvantages under which it labours, and
partly, in all probability, to the present mode of government.
I have scarcely ever seen a tract of land so entirely covered with stones as most of
this part of the Carnatic; and from their singularity I think them deserving of a particular
description. They are of a calcareous nature, and have a slaty texture; and all the hills with
which the country is encircles are composed of the same kind of rock. The district abounds
also with many hard stones, some of which are of considerable value.
Many places have diamond mines, which in former ages are said to have been very
rich, and might still be profitable if people could be prevailed upon to venture their money
in such speculations. I am told that when the rains are over, and when the Kistna, which
takes its course through the country, has discharged its water, diamonds, cats’-eyes,
onyxes, chalcedonies and other valuable stones are found in its bed; but nobody is allowed
to pick them up without having first obtained an express order from the Nabob. The rivers
even said to carry particles of gold along with it, and many specimens of that metal have
been collected.
All the hills and mountains in the Palnād belong to the floetz class of rocks. The
principal ranges run from south to north, and at the south point strike of f to the east
towards Innacondah. The first of these ranges is but of inconsiderable height; but the
latter appear somewhat higher. It conceive the difference to be only apparent, and to arise
from the country round the first range being more elevated than that round the second.
One of the most striking objects of curiosity in this district is a cataract six miles
west fromTimmericotah, on that range of hills that runs from south to north. Some affirm
it to be produced by a branch of the Kistna, As this was a circumstance both curious and
important in an economical point of view, I could not resist the opportunity of inquiring
into the fact accordingly I went to the place, attended, as it was thought necessary for my
personal safety, with a sufficient number of persons armed with matchlocks, and a boy
with a tomtom to frighten away the tigers and bears with which the place is infested.
Fortunately none of these animals presented themselves to obstruct our passage. The skin,
however, of a tiger, which Captain Dess was so obliging as to show me, of an animal about
fourteen or fifteen feet long from head to tail, that had scoured the country about
Timmericotah for a long time, and had committed great depredations even upon the
human species, was enough to have alarmed much bolder adventurers than myself into an
observance of the necessary precautions.
The road that leads to this famous spot rises though not suddenly, is exceedingly
stony, and so closely lined with very thorny shrubs, that one has as disagreeable feeling in
traveling along it. On the plain which forms the top of it, we behold the bed of a small
river, which appears as if it were paved in a regular artificial manner. The stones with
which it is lined naturally break into regular tables, and thus produce this admirable
imitation of art.
The cataract and river under consideration are called by the natives Yedlapādu.
According to their accounts it depends upon the accidental falloff rain, as in the dry season
the bed of the river is perfectly dry. It runs from south to north, in which direction it
precipitates itself over the cataract; then it winds west, and at the distance of about six
miles disembogues itself into the Kistna. The Kistna at this place runs in the same
direction from south to north, and its bed is situated about sixty feet lower than that of the
other small river.
What I have said of the direction in which both Yedlapādu and the Kistna run, as
well as the dependence of the former on accidental showers of rain in this part of the
country, and the great difference in the height of the beds of the two rivers, cannot I
conceive leave any doubt that the former is not a branch of the Kistna, but entirely
independent of it; though for political reasons it were to be wished that the contrary were
the case.
I despair of giving any description of the place itself, adequate to its natural
beauties. A large cataract has always attracted the attention of the curious. It has
something majestic in its appearance. The suspended column of water whitened with froth,
and encircled with rainbows, the peculiar roaring noise, and the idea of danger with which
the spectator is struck, must always render such a spectacle interesting. The peculiar
situation of this cascade in a lonely place at the top of a hill, overshadowed with large trees
and crowded with places of worship, the simple regularity of the bed of the river above,
and of the sides of the basin into which it precipitates itself, render it peculiarly interesting.
The waterfalls from a height of about sixty feet into a basin more than one hundred
and twenty feet in breadth, which, in consequence of the unwieldy asses of stone that the
torrent has carried along , the which have gradually agglutinated together, is more
irregular and uneven than the bed of the water above the fall. The sides of this basin,
especially the eastern, are nearly perpendicular, and so regular, that it appears as if it had
been constructed by the rules of architecture. This is easily accounted for by the nature of
the stones of which it is composed. The front over which the water precipitates itself is also
perpendicular, and has clefts that are filled up with roots of banian trees (ficus religiosa),
and covered with a species of adiantum, from which the French, who were formerly in this
country, are said to have prepared a very good syrup de capillaire.
The roots of the banian, spreading like a net, rendered it easy for me to climb up the
perpendicular precipice, and to collect specimens of the calcareous depositions which filled
up the fissures between the beds of rock. These soft calcareous stones, a variety of
calcareous tuff, often take various forms, which, by the help of a little imagination,, are
conceived to represent the figures of lingums and other Hindoo deities.
At the time of my visiting this place, there was fortunately a considerable fall of
water, but by no means enough to cover the bed from bank to bank. The water was at the
eastern side of the fall, and extended in breadth twenty yards. In the middle there was no
water; but ear the western bank there was an inconsiderable stream, near to which I
ascended the precipice.
The places of worship on the western side of the basin consist of Hindoo temples,
dedicated to a great variety of deities, among which a small one near the bed of the basin is
the most famous. On a certain day all the shepherds of the country round assemble and
sacrifice several hundred sheep to the sanguinary Sekty. They do not give over butchering
till the blood flows in a stream and mingles with the water in the basin of the cataract.
The other temples or pagodas are somewhat larger, very dark from the large trees
that every where surround them; but by no means remarkable for their structure. They
are all built of the stone which is found in the immediate vicinity. To the highest of them
we must ascend by a flight of steps, and this pagoda, on account of a cavern in it, is the
most spoken of. It is said to go under the bed of the Kistna to a port on the opposite bank-
an assertion of the Bramins very unlikely to be true. For, besides the harness of the rock
and the great height of the pagoda above the level of the Kistna, the distance, no less than
eight miles, makes such a communication utterly improbable. It is, however, firmly
believed by the natives of the place. These places are now often the haunts of tigers; and
they are defiled in a shocking manner by their numerous inhabitants, the bats, which
occasion a smell that is almost suffocation.
A matter of much consequence now offers itself tour attention, namely, whether this
cataract can be converted to any useful purpose. the great height from which the water
precipitates seems sufficient to enable it to water any part of the Guntūr Circar, were it
thought proper to let the water take the same course with the Kistna, though I conceive it
would be possible to bring it into the district by a shorter route. But whether the body of
water would b sufficient to compensate for the very great expense that it would be
necessary to incur, is more than I can pretend to say.
The river being entirely dependent on the periodical rains in this part of the
country, is a very unfavourable circumstance, and sufficient to induce the greatest caution
in setting about such an undertaking.
The valley through which the Kistna runs in this part of the country is a barren,
stony, jungly desert. In the rainy season it is clad with verdure which takes somewhat from
its savage appearance; but in the hot season, when all its foliage is withered and the land
wind has established into dominion over it, scarcely a vestige of life is to be discovered in it.
During that season no country can be more tiresome to the eyes of a traveler than this. A
few straggling villages on the other side of the Kistna furnish the only indications of the
possibility of meeting with any thing else than beasts of prey. Unfortunately the few
human beings that are found there are said to be little else than enemies of the human race.
They are robbers who have frequently invaded the neighbouring countries, and some years
ago even ventured to attack Tummericotah itself. This place is garrisoned now by a
detachment of the Company’s troops. There is a small fort, but it is calculated for little
more than a defence against straggling parties of native cavalry. The stone wall round it is
high, at the upper part thin, and defended by four bastions.
The revenues of the country, of which this is the principal place, (said to be 40,000
pagodas) proceed mostly from duties levied upon the Lombardies, who pass through this
country on their way from the inland districts to the sea coast, where they load their
bullocks with salt.
There are no manufactures on the Palnād, except those of saltpeter. The product is
superior to any that I have seen elsewhere in India. The mode used about Innacondah, of
procuring the salt by evaporation, is likewise practised here; and it is doubtless the most
profitable in every respect. This article has been hitherto only exported to the inland
countries, to Hydrabad, &c.; but from this time it will probably become an article of
attention and speculation for the European market*.
At some places in this country, and on the other side of the Kistna, iron works are
established. The only grain cultivated is jonnalu, and the quantity raised is barely
sufficient for the consumption of the country. Cotton grows plentifully, and if encouraged
might be had to a large amount. It is of the same kind as that cultivated all over the
Guntūr Circar. The plant seldom grows higher than a foot and a half, on which account it
is called dwarf cotton (gossypium herbaceum). It is sown by the drill plough in lines 1½
foot distant from each other, the plants being scarcely two inches asunder. It yields a
brownish cotton, much esteemed by the punjum weavers about Samulcotah.
The cassia sennæ grows abundantly in this country. It is a small branchy plant that
spreads itself on the ground, and on that account is called by the naives nēla (ground )
tanghedu. It has five or six pair of leaflets, and a petiole without glands and somewhat
reddish. The legumen is exactly the same as that found among the senna leaves that are
brought from Alexandria. It produces the same effects upon the bowels as the senna of the
shops; and in the hands of the French surgeons, who formerly were in India, and
acquainted with its properties, it proved a useful medicine.
The jungles in the district are resorted to by the cow-keepers of the neighbouring
country, which being mostly cultivated, does not supply them with food enough for their
cattle. They pay a sum of money to the Circar, called ballāry, for a certain number of
cattle. This forms a considerable branch of revenue; though in fact but a wretched one,
considering what might be got if the country were well peopled and well cultivated.
It is now time to begin to turn our thoughts towards returning home; but I shall beg
leave to make a few observations on my way to Innacondah.
The road is pretty good till we come to the first pass through the range of hills that turn
northward. It then becomes stony, and is so beset with bushes as to incommode the
traveler even though lying in his palankeen. There is no want of large trees, though the
jungle in the low country is commonly destitute of them. This place a few years ago was
very dangerous, being inhabited by a set of people that have committed many murders.
Even at present a traveler must be cautious when he finds them in a state of drunkenness, a
vice to which they are very much addicted.
At a place on the other side of the pass, called Mallam, I found the water scarcely
drinkable, it was so brackish. Several of my people who had waited here for me a day
complained of a retention of urine, which they ascribed to the water. This fault in water I
have found to be very common in those inland countries. It is remarkable that it contains
pure marine salt in considerable quantity. In the neighbourhood of Samulcotah. I have
observed that the well water is often brackish, but the salt which it contains in solution is
muriate of lime.
The second place, called a pass, is not so difficult to travel through. It is about
fourteen miles from Innacondah: the country is here well stocked with wood; sufficient,
were it in the neighbourhood of mines, to furnish a greater quantity of charcoal than would
be required.
The hills through which I came are the same as I formerly described in my account
of the copper mines. I happened accidentally to cast my eyes upon a small hill that was
situated just in the eastern opening of the pass. It struck me as likely to contain some
metallic ores. I ascended it, and found to may satisfaction that it was the same on which I
had been before, and on which I had observed the copper mines. I should have known it
immediately had I not come from an opposite direction, and ascended the hill on a side
quite different from what I had done before.
This hill appears to be composed of clay slate. I found also at its bottom several
pieces of writing slate. It seems to contain malachite interspersed through it in very minute
particles.
The great quantity of wood at a small distance, and the facility with which it could
be procured, is a circumstance worthy attention. It is certainly a great inducement towards
re-establishing these mines or even opening new ones.
I observed growing gall along the road a great quantity of wild indigo (indigofera
psendotinctoria), and at last came to a spot where a number of people were manufacturing
indigo by scalding, according to the process described by Dr. Roxburgh. They told me that
the plant grew in abundance among the neighbouring hills, and that they were yearly
employed in manufacturing it after the rains. The plant itself grows very luxuriantly, and is
wonderfully rich in leaves. This species is known to yield a superior kind of indigo; and
manufacturers, who might not wish to settle in this district, where want of hands would
render any great enterprize of the kind abortive, would find it a profitable speculation to
procure a quantity of the seed.
TRACT XVI.
The leaves of the euphorbia neriifolia, though not sour to the taste, but filled with a
milky juice, are put by the natives for a few moments on hot charcoal, and then squeezed
between the fingers. The milk is converted into a watery colourless juice, which possesses
as much acidity as common vinegar. It is rather pleasant to the taste than otherwise.
The Hindoo medical writers recommend collecting these milky juices for medical
purposes in the hottest season of the year; because at that time they may be procured most
abundantly, and are possessed of the greatest efficacy.
The gums, or gum resins, that are derived from these juices, differ respectively from
each other, like the juices from which they were produced. Some have an astringent acrid
taste, others a bitterish and astringent one like that of the jatropha.
A part of some of these milks is soluble in water, while another falls to the bottom in
flakes. This is the case with the milk of euphorbia tirucalli, and of asclepias gigantea same
thing takes place when alcohol is mixed with the milk.
The gum resin of euphorbia tirucalli was found only partially soluble in alcohol:
that of the jatropha cureas appeared entirely soluble, and formed with alcohol a strong red
tincture.
All the vegetable milky juices that I have tried in India have the property of
reddening paper stained with vegetable blue. Hence they all contain an uncombined acid.
Once I filled a bottle about half full of the milky juice of the asclepias gigantean diluted
with water, and set it aside for a few days loosely corked. It was converted into an acetous
liquor, having rather a pleasant smell, and possessing a moderate degree of acidity. I
cleared it from the white sediment which occupied the bottom of the bottle in considerable
quantity, and added a small portion of solution of potash. It did not effervesce sensibly, but
at each addition of the potash gave out a strong smell of ammonia. A good deal of alkali
was requisite to saturate the liquid completely, and ammonia was given out during the
whole process. Exposed to the air at a temperature between 920 and 1080 it evaporated to
dryness, but did not crystallize. It had the appearance of acetate of potash, with an excess
of base.
I tried some years ago what effect the mineral acids would have upon these milky
juices, and observed from the action of the sulphuric and nitric acids some curious effects
which I noted down at the time, but have been unlucky enough to lose the paper. Want of
a fresh quantity of these acids put it out of may power to repeat the experiments.
The milk of the asclepias gigantean has a strong narcotic smell which I recollect the
addition of a little sulphuric acid immediately changes into a very pleasant one resembling
that of sulphuric ether, at the same time a vapour was expelled from the milk, which was
only perceptible for an instant or two.
Lime water is not effected by this milk; but the addition of quicklime produces a
strong smell of ammonia.
The milk of the asclepias gigantean kept for some time in a damp place separates
into two substances, a resinous one, and a watery one. The water becomes gradually sour,
and when kept for some time changes its pleasant smell of ether into a strong disagreeable
ammoniacal odour, and instead of reddening vegetable blue colours it changes them to
green.
` The milk of the jatropha cureas, to which I have been always particularly attentive
on account of the exclusive property which it seems to possess of oxydating silver, gradually
acquires a smell, not strictly speaking ammoniacal, but bordering upon it, and in itself by
no means disagreeable.
From these facts I think we may safely conclude, that all the milky juices possessed
of any causticity contain not only the constituents of some vegetable acid, or a vegetable
acid ready formed, but likewise the constituents of ammonia. Whether the activity which
they possess depends upon this acid or upon some other principle, is an inquiry which my
imperfect experiments are not calculated to answer in a satisfactory manner.
The singular effect which the milk of the jatropha cureas has upon silver, which is
entirely, as far as I know, without a parallel in the vegetable kingdom, makes it very
desirable that it were subjected to and accurate chemical investigation, that we might know
what its constituents are, and to which of them it is indebted for the great readiness with
which it acts upon a metal that resists the action of the alkalies, and of almost all the acids.
If a piece of silver be put into this milk, it speedily becomes quite brittle, and may be easily
rubbed between the fingers into a greenish powder. The process is this. Heat a piece of
silver leaf about a line in thickness between pieces of charcoal, and quench it in the milk of
the jatropha. This is repeated twelve or twenty times. I find that the silver must be heated
each time, almost to the point at which it melts. The silver is then wrapt up in pounded
leaves of any kind of tree, put between two pieces of earthenware in the midst of a small
heap of wraties (dry cow-dung), which must be so situated that the wind cannot raise the
fire so as to melt the silver. The silver is very little, or not at all changed, when it is taken
out after this ignition. But the effect of reiterated heating and quenching in the milk of
jatropha moluccana shows the efficacy of the process.
TRACT XVII.
OBSERVATIONS MADE ON A TOUR FROM SAMULCOTAH TO HYDRABAD.
AS soon as my business in the Circars admitted of my absence, I set out from
Samulcotah, as well equipped as my circumstances would admit, in July, 1798, with an
intention of visiting Hydrabad and the surrounding country, concerning the climate and
soil of which as well as its vegetable and mineral productions, I had heard so much. I was a
little surprised at the request of my dubash to accompany me, to which however I acceded
after telling him that I would not bear his expenses. My suite consisted of near forty
persons: twelve palankeen boys for myself, and one massalji*; six boys and a masalji for
my dubash’s duly; four coury culies to carry my baggage and provisions, one
draughtsman, two plant collectors, two peons, one servant, four invalid sepoys, &c.
In India no person will consider the number of my attendants too great. Not even a
single man could have been spared without great inconvenience. But for the information of
those who have never been in this part of the world an explanation may be necessary, to
account for so great an apparent extravagance. In the first place it was necessary to go in a
palankeen, as a shelter against the inclemency of the weather as the rains were about to set
in, in the part of the country to which I was traveling, and I had been informed that the
choultries on the road were exceedingly bad. Expedition is another reason for using this
mode of traveling in preference to any other, the bearers running daily between twenty –
five and thirty miles; but should I ever go that way again I would do it on horseback, as one
in that case would see much more of the country, and gain a clearer idea of the whole
extent of it; but as a tent would then be necessary nothing would be saved in point of
expense.
The four coury culies were thus distributed; one carried provisions, for nothing is to
be expected on the road, not even rice; not to mention bread and other necessaries, which
in Europe are considered as absolutely indispensable. Another carried my books and
paper for preserving the plants; the third my linen, and the fourth my dubash’s things.
I intended taking two draughtsmen with me, and should have had business enough
for them both; but the best of the two fell sick before I left Samulcotah. I believe, however,
his sickness was only pretended because I would only allow him a little horse to ride on
instead of a duly which he expected.
In this country a man who is botanically inclined cannot do without people to collect
plants. For botanizing in person for any length of time is quite out of the question. I have
some collectors who have made such progress in the Linnæan system as to be able to
distinguish male flowers from female in the Dioecious class, in plants which they have
never seen before.
A peon or two is always useful to take care of the baggage. A small guard of armed
men is likewise necessary as a protection from robbers and tigers. This statement will
serve to show the great trouble and expense with which all collections of natural or
artificial curiosities are attended. People in England have no conception of the labour and
expense which it costs to obtain a box of insects or plants, not to mention the obstacles that
the climate often throws in the way.
I staid two days at Condapilly, a noted hill fort, during which time I got a few new
plants from the hills, namely, a species of malva, triumfetta, cissus, heliotropium, sida,
grewia, vitex, and (as it appeared to me ) a new genus of the pentandria monogynia. As
plants were daily brought in, I ordered the painter to draw only the outlines with Indian
ink; and to colour only one flower, fruit and leaf. By this plan I got a great many more
plants drawn than could have been expected during the short time that my excursion
lasted.
In the night of the 1st of August I set out with my suite from Condapilly, and arrived
in the morning at Gane Parteal*, where I wished to stay in order to make a botanical
excursion to the nearest hills, but my palankeen boys objected to it, because it was a
Nizam’s village, and a Company’s village was only four miles farther off, where they could
procure pots and rice at a cheaper rate. As they are always absolute, or when they are
disappointed make one feel it, I went on with them to Conchumchirla.
It was the custom throughout the Circars to furnish the palankeen boys with pots
and firewood gratis. This custom still holds in some parts of India. Strangers were
provided with the necessaries of life, and their baggage carried from place to place, for the
mere payment of batta* to the bearers. In the Circars, in order that none but those who
are entitled to such an indulgence (a man for example in the service of Government ) may
participate of it, it is denied to all such as do not arrive with people of the same description
from the neighbouring village. It being supposed that a man of any consequence would
have them from the place from which he set out, as well as all the way back again. This rule
may at first sight appear a hardship upon the power classes of people upon whom the
drudgery of supplying these articles must fall; but upon inquiry we shall find that the
persons who furnish travellers with pots and firewood, or carry their baggage, are actually
paid by the Circar (Government). For there is not a potmaker in the country, nor a parrig,
nor a chuckler, employed in this business, who does not hold enam grounds as a
compensation for those very services which he renders to travellers.
The villages only on the most frequented roads through which large detachments of
sepoys pas suffer more than their neighbours; but at the same time they make larger
profits by selling their things to greater advantage. This is well known to all servants of
men in public stations, who in order to enjoy these exclusive privileges, and being
acquainted with our mode of judging, represent to their masters hardships that never
existed, and make the renters demand remittances on account of expenses which they have
never incurred.
Every complaisance of this kind, therefore, is nearly abolished towards European
travellers in places that are often frequented by them, or that are under the management of
collectors and their dubashes. The later, however, expect it as far as it concerns
themselves, their relations, or any black men in any way connected with their persons:
while a gentleman can scarcely get a fowl or a sheep for a curry, although the country
abounds with them, and he be ever so willing to pay for it.
I stopped in a fine tamarind tope at the east end of the village, in preference to the
choultry at the other side of it, which was occupied by an Armenian. It is under the fourth
division, of which Mr. Oakes is collector. The soil about it is black, and it produces a good
deal of jonnalu.
About four o’clock in the afternoon we broke up again, crossed a small river about
four miles from it, called Kisera or Banjala, which runs from east to west, and was not very
deep, though it swells much after a shower of rain. The country between this and the next
village, Nandakum, is remarkably pleasant. On the right is a ling range of hills, that by
degrees strike off to the north-west until they are lost in the distance. The small river
winds from village to village, and seems to fertilize the ground. The buildings in the
villages are kept in pretty good repair, and the inhabitants seem to be on the whole in
comfortable circumstances.
Before sunset we reached Nandikum, a good village with a large pagoda, in which
the Hindoo hours were regularly struck. An elephant also belonged to it that had been
presented by Vassareddy, the Zemindar, to whom this village belongs. The choultry was
occupied by some peons of the Zemindar’s who made room however immediately, and
procured me all the comforts that the village afforded, a fowl, milk, rice, &c. most of these
kind of people are Moormen, who are paid by their employers by orders upon villages that
owe money to the Circar for their kists, and from which they get from a quarter of a rupee
to a rupee a day until the money is paid. They are usually a set of lazy thieves that would
rather starve than work, who cringe in the presence of their masters or any man in
authority, and are insufferably insolent to every other person. They have nothing but the
dress of sepoys, and often not even that, merely a long sword, or a pike, and a large turban.
They seldom use severe measures to make the villages pay, as long as they get their batta,
as this would be against their own interest; but they are sometimes obliged to be severe by
the positive orders of their employers. He means which they in such cases employ are
various. Sometimes they keep the debtor for many of the hottest hours of the day in the
sun without allowing him to cover himself; sometimes they refuse him the necessaries of
life, especially water; sometimes they fix large pad-locks with weights to his ears;
sometimes they put heavy stones on his back and feet while he stands on the sun;
sometimes they put a pot of boiling oil upon his back, &c. the poor sufferers in such cases
frequently put an end to their lives, on which account knives and all offensive weapons are
taken from them before their tortures begin. Sometimes they even die under the cruelties
inflicted on them. A case of this kind happened about a fortnight before my journey two
miles from Samulcotah. A poor ryot, after various other tortures, was kicked violently: his
head unfortunately pitched against a tree, and he fell down dead on the spot. His relations
complained; but the renter was a rich Bramin, who committed the act, and no steps were
taken to bring him to an account.
This was the last* place where I met with a choultry in which one might find shelter
in the rainy season, provided the rain does not came from the east, where it is qui8te open.
Most of the choultries in the Circars are nothing but places surrounded by mud walls,
twelve feet high, thatched with straw, about sixteen feet long, and from ten to twelve broad.
In the walls are holes for putting a small earthen vessel, which is to serve as a lamp in the
night. In this the palankeen is placed when the weather is rainy or cold, and around it
flock the palankeen boys. An old dirty fakīr, in one of the corners, smokes his chillum.
Some of the palankeen boys light their cherutes; others sleep and snore; all combine to
make it comfortable to themselves, while their master is almost suffocated by a
complication of odours.
Finding the country pleasant, I did not go on early in the morning. This delay
enabled me to draw up a description of the plants obtained the day before, and to collect a
few more growing near the choultry. On the west side of the village was a tank lately built;
the sides of it constituted a regular square, and it was lined with flat stones. In the middle
of it was a golamantapam, or a washing place for the swamy (idol), to which he is carried
on certain days from the pagoda, and washed, with the accompaniment of a great many
ceremonies. The structure of a golamantapam is very simple: it is a square place raised
from the middle of the tank, covered by a stone roof and supported by four pillars.
Not far from this tank, under a large tree, I found the Armenian. I invited him to
eat a curry and rice with me, and he did not afterwards leave me till I came to Hyderabad.
He had with him a great many valuable articles of trade. The small guard I had along with
me and my numerous train must have been a great inducement for his to continue in our
company. He spoke English pretty well, and imitated the manners and dress of Europeans
much more successfully than any others of his countrymen that I have ever seen.
I found near the village some beds in which saltpeter had been lately manufactured;
and upon inquiry was informed that, in three other villages besides this, saltpeter had been
made by some Moormen about four years before.
Between this village and Conchumcherla, I found a kind of stone called by the
Gentoos, guruwintam*, with which they polish steel. It is an aggregate of small garnets
agglutinated by an imperceptible but very strong cement. They are all of an irregular
form, a glassy lustre, are very hard; their specific gravity is only 3.1. probably these stones
are detached from the neighbouring hills. Garnets of a regular form, and perfectly
pellucid, are found about Condapilly and Bezwadah, and all along the banks of the
Kistnah; and formerly, I understand, a profitable trade with them was carried on even to
Europe.
About four o’clock we set out from Nandikam and passed a large village called
Nabobpatnam, about eight miles from it: on the west side of which was a very large tank,
with immensely high and broad banks. It was furnished also with a sluice to let out the
water; an most necessary contrivance both for watering the fields below the tank, and for
letting off any superfluity of water that might endanger the banks and the surrounding
country by inundation, if they should burst during a monsoon rain, which furnishes in a
few hours water enough to fill the largest tank to the brim. This tank cannot be less than
three or four miles in circumference. It contains a sheet of water sufficient to irrigate an
enormous extent of rice ground. The village seemed to be inhabited by rather opulent
people, for the houses were pretty good and large: it belonged to Vassareddy, and is the
best I have seen on this side of Condapilly.
From this village we came into a jungle that had lately been in part cleared of its
underwood by the Zemindar, to put an end to the many accidents which had happened to
travellers from robbers and tigers, with which these jungly plains were infested. On the
right hand we passed by a hill called Thieves’ Hill, on account of the shelter which it
afforded to this description of people, before they were driven away by the Zemindar’s
sepoys. Nothing is so effectual against the attack of tigers as cutting down all the jungle
within twenty yards of the road, so as not to leave the animal any ambush from which he
could surprise the traveler. For the tiger never attacks on an open plain; and if he fails in
his first leap, he does not attempt another.
The palankeen boys, impressed with the fear of tigers and robbers, made the best of
their way, and arrived before ten o’clock at Sīr Mohomed Pettah, about twenty miles from
Nandakum. In the morning another traveler overtook us, a Mr. Harding, a young
Irishman, who introduced himself with much affability, and we soon became acquainted.
He was an adventurer, or a soldier of fortune; had been a Captain in the Rajah of
Travancore’s service, and conceived high ideas of his future situation at Hyderabad.
Judging from the letters of recommendation that he had along with him, and which were
almost the first thing he showed me, he had reason to expect that his situation would be at
least lucrative*.
Near this village was large tank, that watered all the rice fields with which the tope,
where we had put up, was surrounded. Indeed it might water all the country to
Juggampettah, a large trading village about six miles to the south. I thought the country
remarkably pretty; the soil was fertile, and nothing was wanting but hands to clear it of its
jungle, and to till the ground. The kind of rice cultivated here is that called by the
Telinganas kusuma: it is never transplanted, but yields a fine white grain, which has rather
a disagreeable smell after being boiled, and is said to produce a flow of bile if it be
constantly used.
It is observed by the natives that coarse rice may be eaten in any quantity without
producing any indigestion, or flow of bile, or those consequences ascribed to the finer and
whiter sorts, which constitute the food of the richer classes of people. I will not decide
whether this effect ascribed to the rice may not with greater propriety be assigned to the
people by whom it is eaten. It is the food of the rich who never eat with so much appetite as
the poor, nor digest so well.
We went almost round the tank with our guns, and killed some quails and ducks.;
the Armenian on his side was as happy as possible. He stole unawares upon a couple of
doves (not considered as game), and killed them both at once. After our return to our
palankeen we took a hearty meal of curry and rice, and opened our last bottle of wine.
We left Sīr Mohomed Pattah about two o’clock, and passed through a great deal of
jungle that had the appearance of having been formerly cultivated land: for we saw not
only deserted villages and pagodas, but ruined forts and several very large tanks, which,
notwithstanding they were out of repair, contained much water, and would be the source of
riches in countries supplied with a greater number of hands. Gras was very luxuriant
every where, and my fellow-traveller remarked that this country was the best adapted he
had ever seen for the breeding of horses. So indeed it appeared at present during the rain;
but I doubt whether during the dry months it will have to boast of a single blade of grass.
Nor will the bushes be covered with any thing else than thorns, with which even at this
season they are abundantly furnished, to the great annoyance of travellers.
It appeared to me that I was gradually ascending. Here and there I observed large
tracts of rocks, just appearing above the surface of the ground, wand which probably in a
very few years will be entirely on a level with it, and covered like the rest with earth and
herbs. To the right are some hills that give the country around a gay, and in some places
even a romantic, appearance.
It was becoming dark when I arrived at Commerabunder, a miserable village, with
a more miserable choultry. It had however a fort, if that name can be given to a place of ten
or twelve acres of land, inclosed on four sides with high us\d walls, and having some ill-
constructed bastions in the corners. Mr. Hl came in some time after me, and the Armenian
ling after him. These gentlemen, together with our baggage, had been exposed top a
shower of rain on the road. There was another choultry in the village somewhat cleaner
than the one that we occupied; but, besides the prohibition laid against our entering it by
the cutwall, as it belonged, he said, to a neighbouring Rajah, the entrance was so narrow
that it would not admit of our palankeens.
I cannot avoid noticing here a circumstance which I consider as strange, that
Europeans still suffer themselves to be excluded by the natives from the best places. It is
the more surprising that the natives should attempt this practice, as neither in their
customs nor religion does there exist such a rule as denying admittance to any but a parria.
It is wrong in Europeans to suffer such a comparison, and much worse to express it evening
just. The Moormen treated the natives very differently; and although now entirely out of
power, are still admitted where an European is afraid to show his face. There may be
something in our frequently having parrias in our retinue, that makes them dislike our
society. But even to this they might be accustomed; and it would prove salutary in the end.
Every thing depends upon the first impression which they receive of a European. To prove
this I can say that I have been readily admitted into their pagodas, at least as far as any of
my servants, both in places where Europeans had lived, who from being well acquainted
with their customs had insisted upon it from the beginning; and still more readily in those
places where no Eruropean had been before. At other places again I was told “so far such
a gentleman went and farther you shall not go.” Our servants are often much to blame,
who when a suder says, instigated by pride, “master must not go farther, but I will go and
make compliments to swamy;” or when a parria tells his master so, because he dare not
venture to go farther himself?: the best way is either to go along or to take an intelligent
Bramin or Moorman with you.
There is another insult to which Europeans are subject that presents itself in a still
stronger light; and it appears astonishing to me bow it could have been overlooked so long.
When a European behaves improperly he is liable to be punished by the laws of his
country; but a native may commit murder, theft, forgery, &c. without any law in force that
can condemn him to capital punishment. It was so at least only a short time ago in the
Circar. The Zemindars were forbidden to punish a man with death (they have done it
however in private), of course murders and thefts were committed every where, and either
no cognizance taken of the perpetrators, or they were kept in confinement for some years
until they could make their escape; during the five years I was at Samulcotah, more than
ten murders of the most atrocious kind were committed immediately about hat place. Very
lately a man killed his own wife; another robbed and killed a Bramin; and a third killed a
young woman almost under the very ramparts of Samulcotah. All these miscreants are
alive and at liberty. Three other murderers have been confined in the main-guard for these
three years. The greatest blessing to a European is that the generality of Hindoos are of an
indolent and passive disposition; but it is still more fortunate that we have a prospect of
soon seeing justice administered, by the measures lately adopted by the legislature of great
Britain.
From this digression, I return to Comadabad, where we slept as well as the
musquetoes and the fumigations of our palankeen boys would permit us. It rained a little
during the night, but the next morning was fair, and we set off as soon as it dawned, and
passed through a great many cultivated rice fields, watered as it afterwards appeared by a
large tank near Munagall, which is about twelve miles distant, and the last village in this
direction belonging to the Company. It has a mud fort and a small garrison commanded by
a native officer. This garrison is necessary to protect t the villages from numberless thieves
that infest the jungle hereabout like the tigers. They are necessary also to keep the
communication open between the Company’s territories and Hydrabad; the resident of
which place keeps a kind of tappal (post) office here.
I was visited b a petty Zemindar; the terms having been settled previously that we
should speak to each other standing, or that he should be allowed to sit down with us. I
presented him with a penknife of which they are always in want. When it shuts they
consider it as a valuable gift. He offered me a sheep that was carried behind him, and it
was delivered to my people according to custom, without being formally presented. He had
a great number of peons about him, but seemed otherwise quite poor, and even complained
of not having wherewithal to subsist his family. He has a small Zemindary under the
fourth division. He belonged to the Reddy family., one of the most renouned in the annals
of the Telinga kings. His chief motive for coming to me was that he had heard of my being
a physician, a title to which in this country the best passport is of very inferior
consideration. He had a complaint to which fat people kike him are very much exposed: he
had been relieved from it once before by another surgeon; and he requested me now to act
that friendly part again. Notwithstanding my best wishes to serve him immediately, I was
obliged to tell him that it could only be done if he would send one of his men along with me
to Hydrabad: from which place I sent him what I thought would be of service to him.
We had put up at an old but large mosque that stood on a rising ground close to the
village. In front we had a fine large tank; and from the top of the building, to which we
ascended by a flight of steps, we could see before us a great extent of country, with many
scattered hills; the whole covered with an almost impenetrable jungle: while behind us lay
the village and a great many rice fields, furnishing a striking contrast between the
dominions of the Company and of the Nizam.
We set off about one o’clock in the afternoon, and were carried much against our
inclination by the shorter or tappal road, which, on account of the thick jungle through
which it goes, is scarcely passable for a palankeen; especially on the other side of
Malsāram, a large village about ten miles from Munagal. A little expense however would
make this a very good road. I observed a number of teak trees in the jungle, not very large,
but in blossom. I saw also several species of grewia, one of them with ripe berries that had
much the taste of cherries.
Rather late in the evening we arrived art Kæsarabad, a village where an officer of
the Nizam resides in a mud fort. I sent him my passport, which captain Kirkpatrick had
been kind enough to procure for me from the Nizam. The consequence was, an order to
the village curnum to show me a house to live in, and to procure me every thing that the
place afforded. The house however had so small an entrance that I was obliged to sleep
with my fellow-travellers under a tree, while I gave up the house to my Bramin; and after
all the provisions offered, we were obliged to sup upon our own biscuit and some milk.
This being the first Nizam’s village in which we halted, my Bramin made every
inquiry to satisfy his own curiosity respecting the happiness which he expected to find the
Nizam’s people in possession of ; but he returned early in the morning with a face full of
disappointment. He had not been able to procure any thing except a little rice, and that at
an enormous price. He had learnt from the Bramins of the village that they were worse off
than any other class of people, that their handsome wives and daughters were taken from
them by force, that they were deprived of their gold and silver ornaments as soon as they
were seen with them; that they had plenty of enam lands but only nominally so, the product
being regularly taken away as a matter of course. They all agreed, and publicly avowed,
that nothing more desirable could happen to them than to see the country placed under the
Company’s protection. He added that depredations upon the property of individuals took
place here daily even in a favoured village, the residence of a great man.
My baggage not coming up till the next morning, I was obliged to stay till ten
o’clock. The Armenian stopped with me; but Mr. H. who traveled light, and was impatient
to enter as soon as possible on his glorious career, left us to the no small satisfaction of the
Armenian. His place was amply supplied, at least in point of numbers, by crowds of all
descriptions of people that joined us from all quarters, on our march, conceiving
themselves fully protected against thieves in the train of a gentleman.
We passed by a village called Bemāram, situated on a rising ground. We then again
passed through a jungle, and arrived about three o’clock at Nāgracall. About Bemāram I
observed some palmeyra trees, a sure sign of our being in a country that has a gravelly or
sandy soil, in which this tree is more easily propagated than in any other. The reason is
that the seeds which are scattered about are soon covered with sand by the wind; they
vegetate, take root, and easily make their way through a loose soil. Indeed this kind of soil
is so congenial to their growth that, from the appearance of lofty palmeyras at the greatest
distance, we may pronounce without any risk of mistake, that the country is gravelly or
sandy. Hence they are found all along the coast, and at the foot of ranges of granite and
other silicious hills which by their decomposition constitute a sandy soil. Near hills of a
slaty nature, as about Innacondah; or composed of basalt or green stone, as in other parts
of the Guntūr Circar, which by their disintegration yield a clayish soil, we may be sure of
never finding a single palmeyra. They grow well enough in a stiff black mud; but then they
require being planted a foot deep, and in a season when the soil is moist and easily
penetrable.
I had looked upon most of the villages on this side of Condapilly as very poor and
wretched; but I now saw, for the first time, one that was really entitled to these
opprobrious names. There was scarcely a hut that was sufficiently covered to keep out the
rain; though the many standing walls of ruined houses convinced us that this formerly had
been a good village. We could not get a drop of milk nor a grain of rice. The water was
brackish except what was got from a tank at a little distance from the village. There were
several other tanks about the village, most of them out of repair; and the ground, though
now overgrown with jungle, still showed marks of having been formerly laid out in rice
fields.
Next morning we passed by several villages not much better than Nāgracall. The
country continued very pleasant; the ground was undulating and at some distance hilly. At
ten o’clock we arrived at Nallagonda, where the choultry being occupied by some of the
Nizam’s horsemen, we were obliged to put up under a tree. There was a large mud fort in
the village, as in fact there are in all the villages belonging to the Nizam. But the villagers
had all run away, a few old women excepted. One of them, when asked for a fowl, replied,
“and pray, Sir, what kind of an animal is a fowl? The Moors take care we never see any.”
They complained of the Sirdar, to whose Jaghire this and the adjoining villages belonged.
He had by his oppression driven all the people away, and was not likely to persuade them
to return. It is, however, no uncommon thing to find the cultivators deserting their villages,
just at the time when the renter wishes to settle accounts with them. This step they take in
order to oblige him to do them justice. But the practice is often carried too far: the
cultivators run off as soon as they are desired to pay their kists, or to settle their accounts,
certain of finding protection in the country of the neighbouring Zemindar, probably not
more than a mile from their own homes. They are flattered with ample promises from the
same quarter if they wish to remain in their new asylum. The renter is then obliged to go
in person and settle with them, or to send his curnum (village writer) with full powers, and
papers filled with empty promises. On an excursion of this kind, they seldom take their
women and cattle along with them. These remain till they see that the renter will not come
to terms: then they endeavour to steal them away; but are often prevented from
accomplishing their object by the From these disputes a loss of revenue often proceeds: the
season for working, which is very short, passes over in sending messages, and drawing up
agreements that seldom are meant to be strictly binding. In the Company’s dominions such
transactions should not be permitted . A Hindoo never wishes to leave the village in which
he was born and educated, nor is it his interest to do so, as he is generally much worse
treated in any other place where he may choose to take up his habitation. The first year he
cultivates the fields in common as a baycastu of stranger, whose share of the produce is half
of the whole; but the second and third years he becomes naturalized, and must submit to
the same regulations as the old inhabitants, with whom, unless he happens to be related to
them, he is never upon a friendly footing.
I was glad to leave this miserable place, where I had been starved a whole day, and
though myself happy to arrive in the evening at Chitteal, one of the best villages I had seen
in the Nizam’s country. Here I got milk and a fowl, and slept once more under shelter. Not
far from the choultry was a small Hindoo temple dedicated to Annamuntu. This swamy has
the figure of a long-tailed monkey, and was Rama Sawmy’s * generalissimo, when he
fought the giants. This I understand is the only Hindoo deity tolerated in the Dekan,
probably because it flatters the pride of the Moormen to see the Hindoos degrade
themselves by worshipping a monkey.
The village is situated in a semi-circle of hills, and has several streets and good
house. Large flocks of black cattle were driven in towards evening, and the fields round it
seemed well cultivated. Among other minerals I found a good deal of asbestos. Its external
colour was pearl grey; internally it was darker. Its external lustre was pearly: it was
opaque; soft, and its specific gravity was 2.6. The fracture was coarsely foliated and
striated; fragments, long and splintery; feels dry, has a grey streak, and does not effervesce
with acids.
We set off early in the morning, and arrived about ten o’clock at a beautiful spot,
sheltered by large banyan trees, in sight of a long rang of hills to the westward. Not far
from it we found a large but ruined mosque and other buildings that showed the place to
have been in former times the residence of a powerful man. The ground hereabout began to
be sandy and the stones silicious, especially in the high ground on which the mosque was
erected, and which was covered with a jungle, where we found abundance of partridges,
quails, and hares. Not far from it was a well with excellent water. Here I found that my
Armenian companion had a quantity of wine and brandy not indeed of the best kind; but
after having been confined for several days to simple water, I was glad to accept of his offer
of a glass of brandy and water, as he had freely partaken of my stock sop long as it lasted.
The ground for a considerable extent was irrigated by wells from which the water
was drawn by bullocks. As this method is very simple, and as far as I know peculiar to
India, I shall give a short description of it. Close to the well is a spot of ground
considerably elevated towards the edge of the well. It is ten yards long, or more if the well is
deep, and just broad enough for a pair of bullocks to walk straight forward upon it. Across
the well are placed some pieces of wood in order to support two other perpendicular
pieces, on which a wheel moves. Over this wheel goes a leather thong fixed to the upper
part of a leathern or iron bucket which ends in a point, to which also a rope is fastened,
somewhat shorter than the former. Both of these ropes being fixed to the bullocks, when
these animals move in a retrograde direction towards the well, the bucket goes down and is
filled with water; and it is drawn up full when the bullocks advance forward. As the small
rope fixed to the point is the shorter the points is kept close to the bucket when it goes down
and fills, and is extended from it by degrees as it rises up towards a channel into which the
water is discharged. (This contrivance will be better understood by inspecting the
engraving of the whole in Plate IV. Fig.2.) By this method a great deal of water is raised,
probably not less than one-eighth of a ton at a time. I have employed it to fill the cistern for
my indigo works, and to water the garden under my care. If the bullocks are broke in, a
single man is capable of managing the whole; and even when the bullocks are
unaccustomed to the business, a man and a boy are quite sufficient.
During my stay here I received a letter from Captain Mackenzie, which was
delivered by a naigue, and a few men of the Bengal regiment stationed at Hydrabad, who
had been sent to escort me from Munagall.
My Armenian, overjoyed at finding himself once more protected, opened his trunks
and showed me a quantity of fine European silver plate that he intended to present to the
Nizam and his Dewan. He told me that his countrymen never disposed of their
merchandize to the Nabobs and great Mussulmen in any other way than that of presents,
which they found more to their advantage than the usual mode. They all understand
Hindostane well, and comply with the customs of the people with whom they have business,
even receiving insults with humble resignation. This may be the most profitable way of
proceeding; but I doubt whether it will eve r be adopted by Europeans, especially now that
all the native Princes are as poor as beggars, and not able to be generous.
We set off about three o’clock in the afternoon, went through a pass in a range of
hills, near a village called Malkapūr, where the opening was very wide, and at sunset we
arrived at Singaveram. On the east side of this place is a river, I believe the Musy, the bed
of which is very stony; but it was destitute of water. From this river the ground rises
towards the town, which lies on the east side of a semi-circular range of hills.
This town has a wall, and gates that are shut at night. The streets are pretty
straight, and lined on both sides with the shops of banians. I was allowed to pass through it
without being interrogated by the guard, and put up in a stable that was given me by the
Havildar, who commanded a detachment of Bengal sepoys, and who procured us every
thing we were in want of that could be obtained. I understood that this detachment was
here on account of the Company’s elephants attached to the Bengal regiment at Hydrabad.
For her they had better and cheaper food than they could have obtained nearer the
encampment.
I arrived in the morning about seven o’clock on a high spot of ground, from which I
saw Hydrabad to my left in an extensive valley; and the forts of Golcondah and Old
Golcondah both upon rising grounds on the other side of it. The air was sharper than I
had ever before found it in any part of India, so that I was obliged to shut up the doors of
the palankeen. In the cold season, it is so cold here, I understand, that the gentlemen can
hardly keep themselves warm; though I am sure the thermometer seldom if ever falls below
500. It is the suddenness of the change that occasions the disagreeable feeling of cold. A
change of 25 or 80 degrees in the course of six hours is common even in covered places.
Were we to take the extremes in the open air, they would not fall far short of 100.
The country hereabout has a very barren and rugged appearance; and the range of
hills that encircle it on all sides are remarkable for their irregularity. They appear as if
they had been thrown upon each other, and you may often meet with an immense block
with one of its pointed sides resting on a very small stone of the same nature. So that the
visitor is afraid least a blast of wind might roll it from its situation, and bury him under it.
This is probably the most barren spot which the Nizam could have selected in the
whole of his dominions for a capital. It is remarkable that the tyrant of the Mysore chose a
similar spot for his capital; for the neighbourhood of Seringapatam is, I understand, as
barren and sto0ny as the country about Hydrabad. It puts me in mind of some Tartar
Princes, who kept a vast desert round their residences to starve their enemies before they
could make their approach to them. With a views to effect such a defence for Hydrabad, it
is not unlikely that his Highness the Nizam confides the management of the country
adjoining the Company’s dominions to the most rapacious of his Sirdars. This opinion
does not appear so improbable when we hear it affirmed that the interior of his country is
much better managed. Gentlemen, who have been there, pronounce the country highly
cultivated, especially all over the Table Land, which commences a few miles beyond the
western range of hills not far from Hydrabad.
The encampment of the Bengal regiment, at which I arrived about nine o’clock in
the morning at my friend Captain Mackenzie’s, lies about three miles north from
Hydrabad, on the north side of a large tank called the Hussan Sāgar. It stands on a rising
ground, and in consequence of the many bungaloes and of the cottages that the Sepoys have
erected, has the appearance of a small town. I was received by Captain Mackenzie in the
most cordial manner, and introduced by him, as soon as possible, to all his friends and
acquaintances, who, I acknowledge very gratefully, have shown me every attention and
kindness in their power. Hospitality was exercised in the true Bengal stile. I had general
invitations from the gentlemen who dine in mess together and from Colonel Hyndman their
commanding officer.
On the ground and near it are some hares and partridges, which they hunt and
shoot; but they dare not pursue then nearer than within two mils of Hydrabad; where
nobody is allowed to shoot, lest the deer and antelopes, which the Musselmen delight to se
in large flocks near their habitations, should be frightened away.
Two days after my arrival I rode with Captain Mackenzie to the residency where I
was introduced to Captain Kirkpatrick, then acting resident who received me in the
kindest manner, and promised his assistance and influence to enable me to see every thing
that was worth seeing.
The resident’s house is in a garden on the banks of the Mūsy , which winds round
the outer northern walls of Hydrabad. It is built quite in the Moorish stile*, has a lofty
hall, the roof of which is supported by large pillars. Round the sides of the wall, where the
first story might be, are alcoves, behind the curtains of which the women might be
spectators of what is going on at great entertainments below. Every thing was grand, but I
think uncomfortable. There were several outhouses for the writers and munshies in the
same structure. The garden was formerly a very good one; cypresses grew here to a great
height, and vegetables and grapes to considerable perfection. At present nothing was to be
seen of the cypresses but the dried stumps, and the vegetables were not superior to those in
the public bazaars. Hyderabad and the country round it have been always famous for fine
vegetables, especially for carrots, onions, and turnips; and among fruits the grapes are
famous. This is rather owing to the climate than the soil, which I am told must be made
artificially before any thing will grow on it.
West of the residency, and not a hundred yards from it , are large unwieldy masses
or fine sientite. The felspar is of a beautiful flesh colour, and constitutes the greatest
portion of the aggregate. The hornblende is black, and rather harder than usual. The
quartz, which is the smallest portion of the mineral, is of a light green: it constitutes a
beautiful stone which takes a fine polish, and would do extremely well for building palaces.
A resident at the Nizam’s court is nothing less than the Ambassador of the King of
Great Britain and of the East India Company; and in order to support his character great
attention is paid to him,. He has an honorary escort from the Bengal establishment,
commanded by a captain. He is also allowed a surgeon. Both of these gentle men reside in
their own house near the resident's; but they live with the resident, as his table is kept by
the Company. All the servants pay him the greatest respect, speak only with the utmost
submission, and with up lifted hands. This compliment is paid also to his European
visitors. All this is thought to be of great consequence: the Mussulmen themselves be4ing
ambitious and ceremonious to a degree. They will measure steps, motions, and words; and
glory in nothing more than to get the advantage over one another in the most trifling thing
of the kind.
The first Ambassador sent to Hydrabad was, I understand, a Mr. Johnston, who
came with all the pomp of an Indian Prince and insisted upon the Nizam’s coming out to
receive him, as he had the advantage over him in point of some titles and insignia received
from the Mogul Emperor: the Nizam acknowledged his titles to be valid, but pleaded a
right to be visited first, as master of the country it was at last agreed that they should meet
each other half way.
Captain Kirkpatrick is fond of natural history and I understand his brother, a
Colonel in the Bengal establishment, for whom he acts here, is a good mineralogist. The
Captain was so kind as to show me a collection of minerals which had been purchases from
M. Sonnerat. I expected from so celebrated a man to have seen a complete and well
arranged collection of Indian minerals; but I was disappointed when I found only a small
number arranged according to the method of Wallerius, and almost the whole of them
European; some with German, some with French, and some with English names. The only
Indian minerals were a few that Colonel Kirkpatrick himself had added. All the tin ores in
the collection were ticketed galena. It would appear fro this that Mo. Sonnerat’s
mineralogical knowledge is not even as extensive as his botanical.
Many stones found hereabout Captain Kirkpatrick was so kind as to give me.
Among these the following deserved most attention:
Semi- opal found near Hydrabad inland. The colour of the best is bluish white.
Others partake of a reddish and somewhat fiery effulgence., when placed between the eye
and the sun. they have a glassy lustre, and are strongly translucent: Fracture conchoidal:
hardness equal to that of quartz. Specific gravity between 2.00 and 2.063. they strike fire
with steel; which I believe is peculiar to this variety of opal. When exposed to the air it
becomes opaque. Song with the opal are found chalcedony, quartz, and sometimes
carnelian. Some of these carnelians are drusy on the outside, have impressions of regular
forms or different kinds of hoes that are filled up with a soft ochrey substance.
Chalccdonies of different colours and shades, at least I consider these minerals as
entitled to that name; though their specific gravity is only from 2.06 to 2.100. Among them
I observed some very fine mocha stones, onyxes, and sardonyxes. Most of them occur in
round pieces, often with a fretted porous surface. The most remarkable of them are the
following:- Cachalong, pure white, surface uneven, very easily frangible, strikes fire with
steel, fragments sharp-edged; fracture flat conchoidal, sometimes even. Transparent in
small pieces, lustre glassy. I was long at a loss what it call this stone until I observed its
transitions into onyx and chalcedony.
Chalcedonies in large rounded pieces, hollow in their inside and of a beautiful
appearance. The outside is a grayish white, rounded, penetrated every where with small
roots of plants, that are not petrified, were the crystals in the inside formed before, or after,
the roots penetrated the stone? If after how was it possible for them to penetrate the hard
mass? If the stone had been in a state of fusion and crystallized in cooling, how came the
roots not to be destroyed by the heat, or intimately mixed with the whole stone?
I observed a curious mixture of different crystals in some large masses, consisting
chiefly of quartzcrystal, amethyst, prase, p7rites, and calcareous spar. The prase usually in
irregular masses formed the basis. It was also crystallized in long slender pyramids in the
middle of the substance of the stone., it has a leek green colour, and the colour of the
amorphous parts is much duller than that of the crystals. On the surface it seems to be
withered, and not unlike green copper rust. When fresh broken it has a glassy lustre;
strikes fire with steel.
The amethyst is in large crystals, not of the finest colour, striated. The quartz
crystals are of different sizes and transparency. The calcareous spar is usually in very
small proportion., the same remark applies to the pyrites.
The soil about Hydrabad is throughout gravelly, excepting where, from cultivation,
it has acquired some vegetable admixture. From attending to its appearance we may easily
determine the composition of the neighbouring hills. When it is black we may rest assured
that mica predominates in the granite of the nearest mountain: where it is reddish, on the
contrary, as about the camp, there is a preponderancy of hornblende. In a hole dug in this
place, I observed the soil had a reddish appearance, and upon a closer inspection I found
that it consisted of felspar with a great admixture of silicious gravel. I went to the nearest
hill, about a mile and a half due north, and found it composed of a decomposing sienite,
containing much red felspar and white quartz, with some particles of red ochre, that , when
exposed to the air, caused the whole to be covered with a reddish coat, and probably
contributed much to the easy disintegration of the stone. The beds of which the rocks were
composed were in the greatest disorder, some horizontal, others oblique. The surface of all
the stones was as if cased by a coat an inch thick: that crumbled away between the fingers.
This decayed part the next heavy monsoon will wash down into the plain; and in this
manner the whole of the rock will be converted into soil.
The solidity, which the ground near the bungaloes in the camp has acquired,
renders it very probable that in time it will consolidate into as hard a mass as the granite
hills themselves. On this hill I found a well or reservoir of water that had been cut through
the solid rock. In it I observed beds distinguished from each other by horizontal fissures.
Not far from the well is a small mosque near which I observed a vein of hornblende setting
through the whole rock, which I traced in both a northerly and southerly direction for a
considerable way. It was about six yards broad. About half way between the hill and
Captain Mackenzie’s house, I observed the same vein again near a tank; and close to it I
observed some rhomboidal iron-shot quartz.
On the road from the camp towards the residency, I found granites containing
much black mica in a state of decomposition. The ground immediately under these stones
consisted entirely of gravel, in which all the parts of the granite were discoverable, and the
soil in their vicinity contained them in a more divided state, and was on account f the mica
blacker than any other about Hydrabad.
Returning one day from the residencuy, I took a different road in order to see the
Hussan Sager, which I was told was well worth seeing. In my way to it I took a view of a
foundery situated on the right side of the road. A Venetian with whom I was unacquainted
was the superintendent of it. They were boring some very large cannot; but were not at
that time employed in casting any.
The ground here for many yards deep consists of the gravel of decomposed granites,
again conglutinated together. Farther on, near the tank, I found the granites to consist of
white felspar, a very small portion of mica, and a little quartz, softer than any other I have
as yet seen. The tank, Hussan Sagar, contains in the wet season an immense sheet of water,
and is a work worthy of a Nabob. The eastern and only elevated bank is entirely a work of
art, and keeps within the bed of the tank the water that collects from all sides during the
rains, between the foot of the western hills and itself. It is nearly a mile and a half long,
and in some places that require particular strength, 120 feet broad; but its usual breadth is
not more than thirty or forty feet. The side of it which faces the water is nearly
perpendicular, and constructed of regular square cut stones of stout granite. It has two
large sluices, each of which has three stories, in which one can go down by flights of steps to
the surface of the water. The whole is very massy, built of the same kind of granite, and cut
into large square pieces like the banks.
The whole must have cost an immense sum of money, this tank waters most of the
gardens about Hydrabad and a great extent of rice fields. Its water is rented out yearly for
about 60,000 rupees to a man who parcels it out again in smaller quantities; by which in
good years he is said to gain considerable sum of money. For the ground itself I understand
the proprietors pay nothing, as it is unproductive without much water.. but it is not every
year that enough of rain falls to fill this tank. The inhabitants of three villages express their
gratitude by celebrating the even with festivities. I had the pleasure of seeing it almost filled
in the course of a few days’ rain; for I was there in the middle of the monsoon which takes
place in the month of August.
This circumstance prevented me in a great measure from profiting by the
opportunity of
seeing what was worth observing, and collecting ad preserving the plants that grow in this
neighbourhood, which by the bye are very different from those in the low countries. I had
planned an inland excursion which the rainy season rendered abortive. I could not eve go
to
Golcondah which Captain Kirkpatrick promised to get me permission to visit, an
indulgence
seldom granted to any European; and those who have temerity enough to venture without
it expose themselves to bad treatment and to insults. The natives say that immense
treasures,
especially great quantities of diamonds, are heaped up there. This in some measure
accounts for
their being jealous of European inquirers. But other accounts contradict this.
The diamond mines of Golcondah are not situated near that place. They are the
very
same that I have described in a former Tract. In the neighbourhood of Golcondah nothing
is to be found but sienite; and about forty miles west of it the opals and chalcedony already
described. Golcondah is the repository of al large diamonds, to which, though the mines
should be in the Company’s territories, the Nabob has an exclusive right stipulated by
treaty.
The name of the present Nizam is Ali Kān, a man more than eighty years of age, in
so
feeble a state of health that his death has been expected hourly for this long time past. He
got a
paralytic stroke by lying in the night (after being heated by a provocative) to cool himself
in the
open air. After having tried for a long time what medicines from black physicians would
do, an
English medical gentleman was called in, and the old Nabob seemed to be the better for
following
his advice. Upon this he returned to his usual indulgencies in spite of the Doctor’s opinion.
This
he still continues to do though only half alive. It is astonishing what a quantity of
provocatives the
higher classes of Moormen use; and yet they live long and enjoy themselves.
The dominions of the Nizam extend a great way inland. The climate produces
abundance
of wheat, jonnalu, and other dry grains. The wheat is much better than that which grows
in
Bengal, and is brought by land down to the coast by the lombardies, who in return take
salt. I
was too short a time at Hydrabad to ascertain the situation of the different districts or the
revenues, which certainly would be immense were they better managed.
I t is said the Nizam confides implicitly in his Prime Minister, Munseer Mulk, into
whose
hands he has entirely given the dominion, and even allowed his daughter to be married to a
young Prince, whom in prejudice of his elder brothers he has named successor to the
Musnud.
I had not the honour of seeing either of these two personages, owing to the great official
business of the resident, now well known to the public. This did not allow him time or
opportunity to speak on trifles, though his inclination to oblige me was great.
Of the private characters of these great men we cannot form an idea except by
comparing their actions with those of persons of the same class of society, and making
allowance
for the political situation in which they are placed. Should we judge of them as of other
individuals, their names would not be found among the virtuous: they would be justly
stigmatized with the epithets of abandoned, unprincipled treacherous, cowardly. He among
them who is most courted and flattered may rest assured that his is on the brink of a
precipice,
that he is the first victim to be sacrificed to the ambition of another, or to a stroke of policy.
Promises and protestations of friendship are then entirely disregarded.
It has been asserted that the Nizam possesses immense riches at Golcondah. But I
understand from very good authority that he is poor as the rest of the Princes on the coast.
This
must be owing entirely to his own mismanagement, as he is not tributary to any, and
possesses a
country that is internally rich.
Hyderabad, the capital of the Dekan, is a very large and populous place, bounded on
the
north side by the Musy, a small river, but rapid during the monsoon, when it is not
fordable.
There is a large arched bridge over it leading to the northern gate, entirely built of sienite.
It is
broad enough for two carriages to pass each other, and is on the whole as good a building
as I
should have expected to see at Hydrabad. The town is surrounded by a low wall said to be
nearly square. The ground on which this city is built is uneven. Captain Kirkpatrick was
so
kind as to give me two of his hircarras, who cleared the way before me, and procured me
immediate admittance, which without them I could not have obtained.
I do not know from what motive; but no European is allowed to enter this city, not
even
an officer of the Company’s detachment. Some years ago, I am informed, they were
perfectly at
liberty to go to any part of it. In order to see every thing as well as possible I traversed the
streets on horseback. They are in general narrow, badly paved, and far from straight. The
houses are mostly built of wood, few with upstair rooms, and on the whole they have a very
wretched appearance. The back houses, wherever I could get a glimpse of them, seemed to
be
much better and more spacious. But no man, and least of all a European, can get
admittance to
them: nobody indeed but the master of the house and his eunuchs. They even distrust their
sons,
who after they have attained a certain age are not allowed to enter the Zenana. Few
women are seen in the streets; but they are crowded constantly with men and horses. The
small
number of females to be seen are either old Moorish hags, or Telinganas, and not the
prettiest of
them. In one part of the town dancing girls are to be seen in great numbers.
I saw several great Amirs pass in state. They have always according to their rank a
number of horsemen before them: their palankeens are very short, and they sit upright in
them. Few but themselves are allowed to enter the gates in such a conveyance: this being a
privilege that must be granted by the Nizam or his Prime Minister. The Amirs living at the
capital are in fact nothing more than state prisoners; none being allowed to go out of the
town without particular leave of the Nizam: much less are they allowed to repair to the
provinces confided to their care.
As eastern pomp requires a great number of attendants and large sums to support
them, it is easy to see why the capital is so very populous. It makes on the whole an
appearance that may be called splendid in comparison with the other native towns on the
coast. I believe we may even call it opulent; for all the money collected in the provinces is
spent here; and merchants, though sometimes plundered, soon recover again, on account of
the extravagance of the rich and the quick circulation of money. It is one of the maxims of a
Moorman never to keep money. They care not for tomorrow: they spend their money
among women and merchants as fast as they can squeeze it out of the poor cultivators, or
out of the merchants themselves. I did not think much of the bazaars that I visited. The
china shops here contain a very miserable collection of things, and those of other
merchants are not much better. The only place where any thing can be got is the Beghum
bazaar, of which I shall speak hereafter.
The buildings best worth seeing at Hydrabad are the large mosque and the palace.
The former is a grand building, the two domes of which are astonishingly high, engage the
attention of the traveler at a great distance, and betray the residence of a mighty and
wealthy Prince. The street, before you approach this grand building, is by no means
qualified to prepare one for the sight of such an edifice. It leads to a gate where I was
obliged to dismount and take off my boots. From this I ascended a flight of steps, and
found myself all at once on the esplanade before the mecca Masjīd. If I am not mistaken it
has acquired its name from being built on the same plan as the great mosque at Mecca.
Having no firman I was not allowed to go into the mosque, and am therefore unable
to give a description of a place that is so worthy of it. From without I saw that the whole
consisted of a number of beautiful and regular porticoes round a spacious center, where ,
before a burning taper, I saw the Mahomedan doctors upon their carpets. The pillars
were amazingly lofty, and if I am not mistaken composed each of one solid piece of granite,
the surface of which was beautifully polished.
Opposite the entrance is a tank or reservoir of water for ablutions. It is a square
place with steps descending to the water, which did not appear to me very clean. I even
saw some fellows washing their dirty clothes in it.
I observed also here a number of beggars in rags, who made a most disagreeable
noise. I do not mean fakīrs, but the same as are met in numbers in all the streets of
Hydrabad, who are even impudent enough to seize the bridle of a horse, and not allow the
rider to proceed a step until he has satisfied them.
On the same side of the mosque, near the reservoir, is the place where the mother of
the present Nizam is buried. It is a small mausoleum erected of coarse marble, very
artificially cut, which is said to have cost a great deal of money. It is always covered with
flowers of which the Moormen are exceedingly fond.
The Nizam goes to the mosque only once a year on a certain day, though his mahal
or palace is quite close to it. I had no opportunity of seeing the palace, for which I am the
more concerned as it is said to be one of the few places worty seeing at Hydrabad. It is
astonishingly large, being, if we include the Zemana, several miles in circumference. The
Zemana, I am told from the best authority is watched by a guard of women, probably
because women are much stricter than eunuchs is watching over the chastity of their own
sex. More than k600 beauties are shut up within the walls of the Haram, for the use of an
old emaciated cripple. Among them are said to be many Circassians and Georgians, and
some Italians.
The beghum, or wife of the Nizam, is said to be of the Vysea cast. He saw her by
chance in his younger days when passing through a village, and took her away from her
house. Her province now is to watch over the rest of his women, to choose and appoint
them regularly, and, as report says, to prepare his curries, which se sends him daily sealed
up under a strong guard. Whether it be true that a certain quantity of pulverized gold is
mixed with them I had no means of determining; but as all Indians have a very high ideal
of the strengthening power of this metal, the assertion does not seem to me very
improbable.
The Beghum bazaar is a kind of suburb inhabited chiefly by Hindoo merchants of
the Mahratta nation. It is situated on the northern banks of the Musy, so that you pass
through it when you go from the residency to the town. It is so called because the duties
levied on all sorts of merchandize in this bazaar belong exclusively to the Beghum or
Queen. The streets are very narrow, and the houses mean. I went only to the shops of the
druggists who have as great a variety of things as many in Europe. But as they did not
understand Telinga, and spoke only Hindostanee and Mahratta, I could not make the
inquiries I proposed, in order to get some elucidation of the Kalpastanum or material
medica of the Hindoos. I confined myself therefore to inquiries about mineral articles, of
which I shall notice the following, as not every where to be found. I could get no other
information respecting the places where they were collected but that they got them from
Auanegabad.
Steatite. Colour green of several shades, especially dark ones; no lustre. Opaque.
Fracture coarse splintery; takes a polish from the nail; specific gravity 2.606. It is used by
the Banians of the country to write with upon wooden tables, which they previously rub
over with the juice of green leaves.
Senku sudda. Schistose talc. I was long at a loss what name to give this mineral, as it
did not exactly agree with any discription that I had seen. It is used by the natives for
giving a gloss to the surface of their finest chunam* work. It is finely ground, put into a
piece of cloth, and powdered over the place. It has a greenish white colour internally;
lustre pearly-opaque;.
fracture irregularly slaty-soft; not very easily frangible. Specific gravity 2.74.
here I may mention that west of Hydrabad are some ancient buildings, the beautiful
enameled surfaces of which have hitherto braved the vicissitude of the weather; the colours
are different, blues, yellow, red, &c. All are very bright, and look as fresh as if they had
been put on yesterday. The art of doing this is said to be lost.
Chalk of a yellow colour. It has neither lustre nor transparency; but is harder than
common chalk. It effervesces strongly with acids, but does not stick to the tongue. It stains
the fingers, but is rather too hard for marking. It has an earthy smell, moulders in water
and imbibes it, on which account its specific gravity is not easily taken.
Spar. I conceive it to be connected with aragonite. It was white, translucent, in
striated prismatic crystals; fragments rhomboidal, sharp edged; specific gravity 3;
effervesces strongly with acids. Used as a medicine.
Spar in rhomboids approaching to cubes. It falls to powder in the fire, sometimes
effervesces strongly with acids, sometimes not. I conceive the first of these to have been
bitter spar; the second cube spar or anhydrous sulphate of lime.
Calcareous slate. Its colour is a dull grayish black, its surface often covered with a
calcareous white crust that effervesces strongly with acids. Fracture perfectly slaty, and
between the lamellæ are seen a few whitish calcareous particles. Fragments sharp edged;
sticks but very slightly or not at all to the tongue; has no lustre nor transparency. Specific
gravity 1.765.
Lithomarge. Colour brownish or bluish red, speckled with white dots. The surface
is very smooth; it is fine grained, feels soft or greasy. It has no lustre nor transparency;
fracture nearly even; very soft; adheres strongly to the tongue; crumbles immediately in
water, but does not fall into fine powder. The softest kind soils the fingers and gives a
reddish streak.
Besides these minerals I found some fullers’ earth, grayish green internally, and a
little scaly; but corresponding in all its other properties with the well known appearance of
this substance.
The only manufacture I have heard of in this place is a fine kind of combaly, and a
very thick cloth for the covering of horses; the former is made of wool, and is 2½ cubits
long and 2 feet broad. Two pieces are always sewed together. The white ones cost about
two rupees, and the coloured ones from three to four. This manufacture might, I conceive,
be much improved, and being of the texture of the common shawls, might by the middling
classes of people, be used in their place. Perhaps they might even do for exportation. I
have not heard of any places in the Company’s dominions where they are made. The other
stuff, called by the Moormen namdha, is also made of wool; but it is not woven. I fancy it
must be worked in the same way that the hatters work up their materials; it is very thick,
and serves the purpose of keeping horses warm extremely well. The common price of a
piece eight feet long and four broad is four rupees.
I went to see the horses that were for sale, and met with a fellow who poured forth a
torrent of abusive language against Europeans. Some of the horses were very well looking
animals but very dear. In the month of December there is a fair at Malligam, about 40
miles from Hydrabad, where horses, I understand, may be had very cheap. They bring
them from all parts of India, being sure of finding a market at a place where the greatest
part of the army consists of cavalry. In the vicinity of Hydrabad great numbers of horses
are to be seen belonging to the cavalry. They are of all sizes from fifteen hands high to
tattoos that are scarcely eleven hands high. This proceeds from the plan which the Nizam
follows in paying his troopers. He makes every one provide his own horse, and pays him
according to its quality from twenty-five to fifty rupees per month; this sum, were it paid
regularly, would be a handsome subsistence. As every Moorman wears a sword when he
goes out, and the troopers have no uniform, it is very difficult to distinguish them in the
mob.
The Nizam’s infantry amounting to about 14,000 men, all clothed and trained, was
commanded by M. Piron. Since I left Hydrabad, this body of men has been disbanded and
the French interest in the Dekan destroyed. Another small corps of about 4000 men was
commanded by Colonel Finglass, who I understand has been like wise dismissed. Both
commanders had their jaghire for the payment of the troops and the former had inherited
from his predecessor, M. Raimond, a large arsenal filled with arms of all descriptions.
This, together with the profits of collection from the Comam country, had given him an
opportunity of amassing a large fortune. His officers, however, were not paid with a very
liberal had, and in consequence have left their families in a distressing situation.
These few imperfect observations were all I had an opportunity of making during
my stay. Had the weather been more favourable, my journey might have proved
interesting, and better answered my expectations. The greatest acquisition I made was the
friendship of Captain Mackenzie, from whose experience and knowledge I have derived
great benefit, and from whose correspondence I promise myself a rich harvest. He had
always been attentive to mineralogical objects, and had lived a considerable time in that
part of the country where the diamond mines are situated. Hence I was not surprised to
find among his papers several descriptions of these different mines.
I left Hydrabad on the 24the of August, impressed with lively sensations of gratitude
for the kind attention shown me by all the gentlemen to whom I was introduced. I arrived
early in the morning at Singawaram, where, after having staid for some time at the
Cutwalls Choultry, which is in the middle of the town. I learnt that a gentleman of my
acquaintance was encamped near the town with a string of elephants, which he had
conducted thus far from Bengal.
Owing to great care and attention he had lost only six out of fifty. Whereas others
before him had delivered no more than one half of the original number, and thought
themselves lucky when not more than one third died on the way. This circumstance is not a
little surprising, as we know that elephants usually live to a very old age, and on that
account may be conceived of a constitution capable of undergoing fatigues of all sorts. But
the fact is quite different; the least thing affects them. When they are sick they can seldom
be prevailed upon to take physic, and die in consequence; gripes is the complaint they
suffer by oftener than any other. Sometimes they are seized with a sudden weakness for
which nobody can account. Some hours after my arrival a large female elephant, thirty
years old, died of the last mentioned disorder. She had been to appearance, quite well the
day before, had eaten fourteen sīr of rice, the usual allowance, and was seized with the fit
when going to drink. She laid herself down and was never after able, even with the help of
two other elephants, to rise again. One of the signs, which the people that attend the
elephants chiefly notice, is the dung: when quite red, it is a sure sign that the animal is in
health; but when it assumes any other colour, they are equally certain that the elephant is
diseases.
The food of the tame elephant is, besides rice, the leaves of the banian tree (ficus
indica) and rice straw; as that of the camel is the jargosa leaf (melia azedarachta:) the
former is acrid, containing a mil, and the latter very bitter. The price of an elephant varies
from 600 to 1000 rupees or more; and that of camels, which on account of their hardiness
are the most useful animal, is from 200 to 300 rupees about Hydrabad.
Long teeth in elephants are not admired, they are therefore cut short before the
animal is brought to the market, and a copper or brass ring is fixed round them at the
extremity. In other parts of India, long teeth semicircularly bent upwards are esteemed a
beauty in an elephant.
The ground near Singawaram is very stony and sandy; hence there are abundance
of palmeyras on the road towards it. Half a mile west from it I found several layers of iron
stones perpendicularly cracked, and not far from these different kinds of trap scattered
about.
From this place I set off about five o’clock, and proceeded towards Malkapūr where
I arrived late in the evening. The ground is very stony and jungly, and difficult to travel
over., with a little brandy I conciliated the Headman’s favour, who made room for me and
y baggage, together with my small guard of Sepoys, much against the will of a party of the
Nizam’s cavalry, who had occupied the choultry. This village is at the entrance of a pas
through a range of hills running nearly north and south. The hill that terminates the
northern range is called Pedda Gudda, and the two hills that commence the southern range
are called Pedda and Chinna Somconda. From what I could observe, these hills must be
granite; the ground at the foot of them being sandy, well stocked with palmeyras, and the
hills abruptly and variously pointed.
From this place to Narainpore you travel along this range of hills, which are pretty
high. The ground is sandy and the road not bad; though the country be but little cultivated.
I understand there is another road close by the hills; but it is said to be very stony and
disagreeable.
Narainpore, a pretty large place, is the residence of the Rajah Narrainreddy. It is
situated in a pleasant country and in a bason formed by the hills. I put up in a garden on
the north side of he village, where a good number of gun-carriages ad tumbrels were
making, which I was told were for the Nizam’s army. They are made here because the
tummah wood (mimosa arabica)is cheap. This wood is brought from a place situated on
the south side of the village, where the ground is better; for these trees delight in a black
stiff mud, such as is common in the Guntūr Circar, and along the banks of the Godavery
and Kistnah. East of the village are some baren hills covered with different kinds of
silicious stones, though the main hill seems to be composed of solid sienite, as was evident
from a well that had been dug at the foot of these hills near the village. It is about sixty feet
deep, cut through the solid rock; the sides of it exposed to the air were disintegrated, as was
the case likewise with the heap of stones that had been thrown up near it. The sienite was
internally of a reddish white colour with a great deal of felspar in large pieces. The
disintegrated portions looked whiter, being more detached from the felspar. This
disintegrated rock constituted the soil of this place, which contains a good deal of clay on
account of the great proportion of felspar contained in the rock.
At the foot of this hill, close to the gardens where I put up, is a small river, in the
bed of which I found large pieces of felspar of different colours, but most commonly flesh
red or bluish. On the top of the hills, opposite to the fort, are several towers.
I wished to pas through the fort, but was prevented by a surly fellow of a sentry,
who refused me admittance until the Zemindar’s leave was obtained. I told him I had the
Nizam’s. he answered that might be; but I must have the Zemindar’s also. As I did not
wish to stay for that, I went round the place, which was enclosed by a good wall, and
proceeded towards Campula. The country here is cultivated and appears fertile; the soil
containing more clay than I had before seen.
It rained very much during the night, so that we were obliged to look out for a
better shelter than the choultry at Campula afforded; this we found in a Telinga house.
After the rain was over I went out with some of the sepoys to kill something for dinner,
which after much fatigue was accomplished.
The soil was stiff and black, and stuck to our feet so that we could scarcely
disengage them, in a nullah near this place, I observed that this soil covered a thick bed of
limestone or rather marl. This if I recollect right was likewise the kind of stone met with in
small pieces in the fields mixed with a few fragments of primitive trap and granite.
We set off in the afernoon, but were obliged to halt again at Mungūr, not more than
eight miles form the former place. In preference to the Cutwall’s choultry, I put up in a
banian’s shop, as the cleaner place of the two. In the evening after the rain I took a walk
round the place. It is surrounded by walls and has a mud fort. At its east end there is a fine
pagoda, built entirely of a beautiful and hard granite. They country is waving, and
descends perceptibly towards the east. On the west side of the town is a small river, the bed
of which is entirely sandy.
Notwithstanding the constant small rain, I set off in the morning and reached
Nallagunda, where I went into an old but large pagoda. It was built of a strong granite,
regularly cut.
Understanding that an Amir commanded the troops that occupied this place, and
knowing how much the natives like being paid attention to, I sent one of my men to him
with my compliments, and requested to be kindly treated in a place under his command.
He was so much pleased with the compliment, that he immediately sent a chobdār with
orders to attend me during my stay, and to turn any man out of his house that I should
desire him to clear for my residence. The man brought me to a very good house, inhabited
by the Adjutant of Yezami, the Amir’s corps, a young man who behaved remarkably civilly
to me. I staid in an upstair room with him for many hours, where numbers of his sirdars
came probably from mere curiosity to see me. Among the visitors was the son of Yezami, a
little stupid boy, of whom however they took great notice. I was always addressed Captain,
which seems to be the name they give to all European gentlemen. For though I told them I
was a physician they still continued to call me Captain, and inquired of my servants what
rank I held in the army, to which they think every European in this country belongs. From
this man I learnt that the horses in the Nizam’s cavalry get only three sīr of gram per day.
Their whole allowance is given them at once in the evening, which is thought a much
better plan than stuffing them two or three times a day. They expose their horses to al
weathers, as I them in all parts of the town and very good ones too. Those in the stables are
only kept for show. When I complained that a horse under my care was exposes to the
rain, the sirdar ordered his own to be taken out of the stable and mine to be put in its place.
The hill called Nallagunda is close to the town, and has been fortified as well as
another opposite to it. The stones appearing at a distance quite black; it is not unlikely
that they ay be of a basaltic nature; but the constant rain prevented me from being able to
ascertain the fact. Both the hill forts are quite deserted and in ruins.
The next day we passes a ridge of hills, the stones composing which appeared to be a
species of trap. The surface of the country was in general undulating and covered with
jungle: the soil, as usually happens in the vicinity of basaltic mountains, was black, mixed
with some sand. Here and there it was entirely sandy, mixed with calcareous tuff in the
form of gravel. I observed also palmeyras and mimosas. We stopped a little at Cockrami,
near a large tank. The stones I met with were mostly porphyries composed of red felspar,
mixed with quartz and hornstone, and incrustated with calcareous tuff. Farther on at
Yemmalpilly the ground is quite black with abundance of rd felspar and calcareous stones.
But it becomes somewhat sandy again at Merialpādū, a pretty good village, at which we
halted during the night. Here, as well as in the former places, the inhabitants complained
much of Yezami’s oppression. Cultivation was not carried on to ay extent, and rice in
consequence was very dear.
Some saltpetre is made hereabout, a proof that this place must have been populous
in former times, and that the soil is good. For saltpeter is ever produced without both these
requisites.
From this we passed through and even jungly country near a range of hills running
south and north. As the tops of these hills were all even it is probable that they were of a
slaty or calcareous nature. The soil was loamy.
On the banks of the Kistnah is the village of Wadapilly, a pretty large place, and at
this time full of strangers, who had encamped along the banks of the river. They were
mostly Mahratta Bramins; were al mounted, and had a martial appearance. They had a
number of handsome women with them, and were on a pilgrimage to Tripetty, a large
pagoda in the Carnatic.
Wishing to proceed, I wanted to cross the river immediately in a basket boat, the
only kind of conveyance which they have here, but I was detained by some Peons who
would not set me pass unless I produced a passport from the Nizam,. I was therefore
obliged to stay till my people came up, when I produced my passport.
The banks of the Kistnah are covered with a black mould some feet deep, under
which is a layer of limestone, breaking with a coarse slaty fracture. Of this limestone all
the houses in the village and the adjoining part are built. This limestone at a certain depth
probably constitutes the bed of the river. Not far from it is found a beautiful white clay
which is sent to Masulipatam for cleaning copper and silver. It has no calcareous
admixture.
Thus much I have been able to say of the country through which I have hitherto
passed. My observations I flatter myself would have been both more interesting and more
correct if the constant rain had allowed me to travel more on horseback or to look about
me at the places where I was obliged to stop. The situation of the places that I have
mentioned may be sufficiently known from the map; but it is to be wished that the nature
of the country and its productions could have been more completely described. I shall take
a retrospective vies and give a summary account of the whole as far as my observations
went.
The tracts of mountains on both sides of Hydrabad are the highest that I have seen
on this tour. They are in fact the Ghāts or part of the chain of mountains that commence at
Cape Comorin and divide the whole peninsula into two parts. They are all sienitic, varying
somewhat in the relative proportion of their constituents in different places. As we
advance east we find smaller ranges branching out from the principal ones. There are
likewise some detached hills composed also o sienite, but containing a greater proportion of
felspar. Farther on (at Conrama) we find whole ranges of hills of a mixed nature,
containing beds of primitive trap, of limestone, besides the felspar and hornstone, and
quartz which belong to the granitic hills. These hills are lower than the granitic ranges, but
they almost all run in a southerly and northerly direction. They are more even, but not
quite so straight as those we find farther east, which are of a slaty and calcareous nature as
well as those near the Kistnah.
If we notice the ground about these ranges of hills, we find it near Hydrabad and the
granitic mountains quite corresponding with the hills themselves, abrupt, uneven, and
barren. If the quartz predominates we find the soil gravelly; if the felspar, we find it clayey,
and tinged red when the granite contains iron. At a certain depth conglutinating again and
forming a new kind of rock. This may be seen in deep wells. Palmeyras and a few thorny
bushes are the only natural productions of this country. The palmeyras only grow where
the soil is sandy and at a distance from the hills. Where the hills consist of trap the soil is
more or less black, the surface is waving and covered with a variety of large and small
trees, and with mimosas where the soil is very stiff. This is the case about Nallagunda.
Where the mountains are slaty, or of a marly nature, the ground will be even and
the soil very rich. In dry weather it will be like dust. The roads and paths appear as if
graveled and of a white colour, proceeding from small pieces of white tuff or conglutinated
marl washed down from the nearest hills, and deposited in particular spots. Dry grains are
the produce of he latter kind of country and soil; and rice, where it can be watered from
small rivulets that stream every where during the wet season from the neighbouring hills.
Were these rivulets as well taken care of as the Eliseram, near Samulcotah, they would
greatly enrich the country. But at present it is depopulated and poor, and will in a short
time be a desert, if it continue under the present management. Here the bed of the Kistna is
deep and does not flow very rapidly. The fine black mould which it deposites is a sure sign
of its coming from a country having nearly a similar soil. From Captain Mackenzie’s
account the Table Land on the other side of Hydrabad, from which it comes, is a flat
country with a black soil that produces dry grains in abundance.
I would not however argue from this that the soil in the Guntūr Circar, which is
black, owes this quality to the river. I am more inclined to ascribe it to the nature of its
mountains, which as far as I have observed are mostly of the class of rocks distinguished by
the appellation of trap, and by the strata of calcareous tuff that are found all over the low
country.
The basket boat in which I crossed the river is quite round, twelve feet in diameter
and four feet deep some pieces of light wood at the bottom give the traveler a dry footing.
These boats have a circular motion in the water and are directed by a man with a bamboo
in his hand, having crossed the river I found myself in the Palnād, which I have already
described in a preceding Tract. The ground from the river ascends towards Timmericotah,
and every where presents large beds or layers of limestones of different colours, mostly
grayish white, white, black, and red. They have all a coarse slaty fracture, absorb moisture,
and stick a little to the tongue. The black limestone at first sight looks like plumbago. It
burns quite white, a proof that the colouring matter is of vegetable origin. It is used for
building; but the red limestone is found not to answer for that purpose, and therefore is not
employed. I have observed small veins of quartz running through this limestone for more
than fifty yards.
TRACT XVIII.
After leaving the Bunslows Berar, we came into a wild uncultivated country., we
crossed the Tapti or rather stepped over its source at Molty. From thence the country
becomes mountainous, and continues rising to the mountains of Nurbudda, which belong, I
believe, to the Vindyan, famous in Indian mythology. We passed through them not without
great difficulty. It took us more than eight days, encamping in narrow valleys, inhabited
by hordes of bears and tigers. Had we been attacked by ever so small a force we must have
perished, if from nothing else, from want of water and provisions. These mountains, some
of which are about 3000 feet in height, are composed of granite, though it is neither so hard
nor so beautiful as that which forms the constituent of the mountains that run north and
south through the peninsula.
The mountains here run east and west on both sides of the Narbudda, which is one
of the finest rivers I have seen din India. We encamped on its southern bank, near a small
fort called Hussingabad, and crossed it about a mile east from that place. The river here is
about half a mile broad, the stream runs gently along, and the water is remarkably sweet.
It abounds in good fish and tortoises, which are as large as any in the sea. The stones in the
bed of this river are red and black jasper, and other hard argillaceous minerals. On its
banks, which are very steep, and in its bed, I found several plants belonging to genera
common in colder climates; as ranunculus, veronica; and in nullahs, or small rivulets, near
it there occurs abundance of the sweet smelling grass roots, the Andropogon muricatum.
The valley through which the Narbudda runs is but scantily cultivated, and only in the
neighbourhood of villages, which here lie at a considerable distance from each other. The
jungle, when we passed it in December, was mostly bare of leaves, but in January the
beautiful Grislea tomentosa, which was every where in blossom, enlivened the dreary
scene; and in February the whole country appeared for a short time as if covered with the
brightest scarlet, from the flowers of the Butea frondosa; at the same time the Bassia
latifolia perfumed the air in its peculiar way, for its scent is not equally agreeable to all.
The flowers of this tree are gathered by the natives, and when dry have the
appearance of a berry. They are as sweet as raisins, and are chiefly used by the natives to
obtain a good vinous spirit by distillation. The flower has in its dried state a smoky flavour,
and might be used in small quantities to impart this peculiar taste to gin and whiskey, as
the amateurs of these liquors are, I am told, particularly fond of such a flavour in them.
After we had crossed the Nurbudda, we had to march through mountains, wilder
and more unfriendly if possible than those on the south side of that river. Luckily they were
not so steep. After a forced night’s march we came to Racīn, a strong hill fort where we
expected to find enemies, but they were fled, and we were told that the Bassal Nabob had
come to terms, and that we were no longer in an enemy’s country. From thence we went on
to Bilsa, famous for the best tobacco in India. It is a very large town, and the country all
around it is well cultivated and rich. A few miles north of it we passed the Bedowa, a river
which falls into the Jumna. At this season of the year it was every where fordable. Seronge
was the last and best place that we came to in Hindostan. It lies in a charming situation at
the foot of a small range of hills, and at the end of a most extensive and well cultivated
plain, which furnishes wheat, sugar, &c. in the greatest abundance. Mīr Cān had left the
place before our arrival. Not one of the inhabitants had abandoned their habitations, they
even threatened those who annoyed them that they would complain to Colonel Close; and I
am sure they have in no one instance been disappointed by him. About this time the
Colonel was so much liked by the army, (a few great commanders excepted,) that he might
have done with it any thing h e thought proper, which was by no means the case in the
beginning of the campaign. We were at times, even in this rich country, very badly off for
provisions, particularly for our cattle, gram selling in our bazars at five or six sīr for a
rupee: while at the distance of ten miles 50 or 100 sīr could have been purchased at the
same price.
Cloth of the coarser kind was manufactured here, and was very cheap. I bought a
piece ten yards long and a yard wide for one rupee. It was a kind of cloth that would made
excellent tents; many tents were made up for the Company here, and I think they must
have got a private tent for about 7 or 8 pagodas, which is 100 per cent. cheaper than the
price in the northern circars. Coarse cloth was always to be had very reasonable from the
time that we left Omravatty.
In this part of the country we were obliged to substitute the spirits made from the
flowers of the Bassia latifolia for arrac and brandy. The company, I dare say would
purchase it for a rupee a gallon, as I made it for about half that sum, and much better than
what was served out to the Europeans, I cannot believe that the Company paid six rupees
per gallon as was said, or that they paid fifty pagodas for a private tent made up in the
camp!
Near Seronge, where we encamped for a fortnight, I felt the greatest cold I ever
experienced in India. The thermometer was generally 380 in the morning, and twice it fell
to 320, and we had ice. Our southern people, notwithstanding this, liked the country, to
which the general healthiness of the army must be ascribed. The Europeans on the
contrary suffered considerably, especially the 34th Regiment of British Infantry. This
might be owing to the new manufactured spirit which they were obliged to drink.
The regiment to which I belonged and another of cavalry were sent towards
Bundlecund to bring a supply of gram; and I must say, that I never saw so fine a country in
my life as that between Ruttunghur and the Nurbudda. It was entirely covered with wheat,
gram, and flax, all ripe for being cut down; but what was curious, in the whole immense
plain not a house or village was to be seen. We were told that the cultivators lived at a
great distance, and came here only in the sowing and reaping time; they sell their crops to
the Brinjaries as they stand upon the field. About this time of the year the Pindaries, a
lawless set of rebels, make their appearance likewise, to share the fruits of industry with
the buyers and sellers. I consider this as the finest country and the finest climate in the
world. What a pity it were not inhabited by industrious well protected Europeans.
In February we recrossed the Nurbudda, and the force to which my regiment
belonged, remained in that place about a month, in expectation of being stationed in
Hindostan, as a subsidiary force to the Bunslow. But ultimately in the beginning of April
we returned through Candeish to Jālna, where we arrived in May. The rest of the army
had gone by another rout under Colonels Conran and Hare to Jālna and to the Carnatic.
Candeish is a mountainous country, and in the valleys a very hot one. The Tapti
which runs through it is already a large river, with very deep and steep banks, consisting
throughout of a black firm earth. Hear it the country is curiously intersected with navines
from thirty to forty feet deep, that often wind along for several miles; as the road lies
frequently through them, a whole regiment frequently disappears for an hour, and re-
appears again not a quarter of a mile in a straight line from where it first entered the
ravine, all covered with dust and almost suffocated.
Berrampore is the capital of Candeish, which belongs to Scindiah. We passed close
under its walls, but no European officer was allowed to enter it. By all account it is the best
built city in India, and to judge from its outside it must contain may fine large buildings. It
lies in a beautiful valley on the banks of the Tapti. The country about it is well cultivated,
and the villages are the neatest that I have seen in India. About fifteen miles south from it
is the range of hills that separates Candeish from Berar. These we ascended by the
Adjunta Pass, were we encamped near a fort of the same name. Not far from this place I
found monuments to the memory of some of may dearest friends, who had been wounded
in the battle of Assaye, and had died here. The field of battle we also saw and encamped
close by it. No mark or vestige of that famous action remained, except a single button
marked 74, that was picked up by some of us.
Soon after our arrival at Jālna, I found myself unexpectedly in orders for the
factories of Ingram and Maddepollam, an appointment the more agreeable, as it was the
place where my two poor remaining children had found an asylum in the house of Mr.
George Yates, without whose kind care I must have lost them altogether.
TRACT XXI.
REMARKS ON MAHAVELLYPORAM.*
AS I have nothing left me by preceding travellers either to admire or to describe
about Mahavellyporam, and yet do not wish to be considered as an inattentive or idle
spectator, I must endeavour to represent things in a different point of view from my
ingenious predecessors. Should the doubts or observations which I am about to bring
forward deserve refutation, the good cause will gain by my opposition in acquiring
clearness. My propositions are the following:
First. That there never existed, and consequently never was swallowed up by the
sea, such a town as Mahavellyporam is represented to have been.
Secondly. That new Mahavellyporam, or the town said to have been built on the
destruction of the former, never has been better or larger than at present, or at least never
has been a place of any consequence.
Thirdly. That the sculptures on the rock and the pagodas are very little, if at al,
superior to many others in the country.
The grounds for believing the former existence of such a town have been rested on
the alleged danger to vessels if they approached the coast within many miles of it, lest they
should founder on the remains or ruins of the buildings still remaining though buried for
some thousand years in the bottom of the sea. Secondly, On a stanza in the Bhagavat,
expressive of the existence of a large town on the south east point of Ceylon. And thirdly,
on the tales of the Bramins. This simple statement seems to me to go far to establish my
position; but as the two latter allegations have been in a particular manner connected with
the first, and as they must all stand or fall together, I shall pursue the subject a little
further.
It is certainly true that vessels cannot approach the coast, because for many miles
both north and south it is very rocky; and here in particular we can observe two miles out
in the sea, opposite to the pagoda near the surf, a ridge of rocks on which the sea breaks
very violently. These, in my opinion, are the buildings so much spoken f, which have
braved the monsoons and currents for these several thousand years.
Respecting the two verses, I must refer to Mr. Chambers’s account, as also for the
truth of my observation. The only book that would lead to a certainty in determining
points of this kind is the Stalapūrānam*, for though poetical, its avowed scope is to
perpetuate the memory of remarkable places. Any other poetical work, as the Bhagavat,
Ramayana, &c. cannot be admitted as evidence either for the description or situation of a
place, anymore than the Iliad, Eneid, or Lusiad on the same subject.
The tales of the Bramins, whether proceeding from ignorance, superstition, or
indigence, are all alike unworthy of confidence. They found it answer their purpose to
persuade people that the rocks out in the sea were roofs of pagodas; that in a dream they
had information from a mighty Swamy of his intention to move out of the briny element
into a more dry and comfortable place. This explanation is not only perfectly consonant to
the mode of thinking and acting of the people in India, but it is the very story of the
Bramins of this place.
A more direct proof of the mere imaginary existence of this place is the account of
the founder of it, Mahabali, who is said to have reigned in the saly yūgam (the golden
or first age), that is, about Noah’s time, if we compute according to Mr. Bentley’s tables.
This is part of the story of the Bramins, which would not become more likely, even if we
were to suppose that Mahabali were the same with Balin, who lived in the dwepa yūgam
(the brazen age(, about the 3098th year of the world.
In order to prove my second position, I shall state the traditions, the only intelligible
documents that we have remaining; and I trust, by comparing them, not only to make good
my assertion, but also to throw some light on the real history of the place.
First. The inhabitants that escaped the general calamity are said to have been the
first founders of the present village, once a large town.
Secondly. About 500 years ago a Poligar of the name of Balicota Simcomnaidū lived
here, and began to build a little fort on the top of the rock, some ruins of which still remain,
as bricks. &c.
Thirdly. It is said also that Krishnarailu, who lived about 250 years ago, employed
some workmen, who had been driven from the north into the Carnatic in search of bread,
in erecting a gopāram or a choultry, the walls of which being the solid rock, represented
Krishna, his brother, and a number of shepherds and milkmaids, cows, &c. in the plains of
Madūra. The same people were probably also employed in the execution of the sculptures
in the rock close by, and the pagodas and rhadams most worthy of attention: for much
older than 200 years they cannot be, if we judge from their appearance, and compare it
with the nature of the rock, which, as shall be observed hereafter, under certain conditions
is liable to decomposition, and in many places is actually far advanced in disintegration.
By comparing these different accounts, we may with a great degree of probability
conclude that, before the reign of Krīshmaraylū, this place was the seat of a Polygar or
manager of a small district, who, at the persuasion of the Bramins first built the two brick
pagodas for the reception of the half drowned god. In consequence of this and other
circumstances, the place became known to Krīshmaraylū, who in order to employ a set of
half=starved labourers set them to work in carving the rock. But as there are no remains
or ruins of palaces, walls, large tanks or wells, to be found near the place, and as the space
between the rocks and the sea (half a mile) would not allow of a large establishment, we
may safely conclude that this has never been a place of any consideration.
It remains for me to make good my third assertion; and by examining the objects
thought most worthy of attention, this will be easily accomplished.
The pagoda on the sea shore is the most talked of, though I do not see why, for it is
neither remarkably large, nor uncommonly beautiful;, nor in any way singular. It is built
of stone upon a rock which supplied the materials. In respect of size it does not even rank
with the middling in the Carnatic. It seems to have been once inclosed by a brick wall, and
the number of stones lying in the surf and near the pagoda on which the marks of the tool
are to be traced, shows that some smaller buildings or temples, which are very common
near large pagodas, have formerly existed here.
A pillar of about fourteen feet high, opposite to the door facing the sea, is washed by
the surf. We see the like Garuta Stambham before al pagodas, but they are usually much
larger than this; it does not appear ever to have been higher no marks of violence being
discoverable.
This pagoda viewed from a small distance has a pretty appearance, on account of its
pyramidal form; but this is a form by no means uncommon in India. There is one, for
example, of the same kind on the west side of Conjevaram. When closer exam9ined we find
that the stones of which it is built are by no means uniform either in size, species, or shape.
The sculptures of Sīva and Pārvatty in the inner rooms, and those of the Dii Minorum
gentium, are neither beautiful nor singular, nor do those on the outside of the walls
represent any thing else than figures and historical incidents, which are very common in
other places, and explanatory of mythological events.
The uncouth figure in a lying posture, cut in the rock in a gallery beh9ind the
pagoda, cannot well be Wishnū, as some have imagined it having none of the insignia that
characterize that deity, as the chacram, sankam, &c.; and because this pagoda is
consecrated to Sīva, whose worshippers certainly would not suffer Wishnū to occupy a
corner in the temple of their favourite deity.
Let others admire the sculptures on the rock, for my part I consider them as hideous
caricatures. The cats resemble hyenas; the angels or devatas look like rickety children with
big heads and swollen bellies; the heroes have things like spindles, while the nymphs and
milk maids have waists as thin as their arms. The only tolerable figure is the old man
Arjūnas fencing master. The cows and elephants I have seen equally well executed in other
places lions represented in their proper form with a mane are to be seen in many other
parts of India; for example, at Besoadah, at Samulcotah, at Ellore. The goddess
Mahirhārura Maidānī(with a buffaloe’s head ) is always seen upon the back of a proper
lion. It is not necessary to trace the sphinxes to Egypt, we find them ready made to our
hand al over the country under the name of Gūnti Simha in almost all pagodas. In the
Conjeveram pagoda there are pillars resting upon sphinxes. Neither is there any occasion
to have recourse to Arcadia for the origin of the flutes. The Telinga shepherds call them
pillam gravi, the Sanscrit scholars wēnū: hence Krishna is called Wēnū Gopāl, the flute
playing cowherd. The instruments applied to the mouth, as the flute and flageolet, go
under the same name.
The temples on the rock and about it, of which we found a good number, and which
are mostly cut out of one stone, are very insignificant and more like models than real
Hindoo temples; may of them are left unfinished, and appear as if but lately come out of
the hands of the stone-cutter. The Rhadams, to the south of the main rock are also cut out
of single stones. Whether they are models of Hindoo palaces (mahal) as has been suggested,
or places of worship, as the lingums and sculptures on them seem to indicate, I cannot
pretend to decide; but the architect who planned the largest of them must not have
understood his business well, for by excavations and galleries he weakened his building so
much that, when about sixty years ago it was struck by lighting, it burst asunder from top
to bottom. On the outer walls of this building are many figures, some of which appear to
be decorated with large wigs. This may furnish hints whence the custom of wearing them in
our western world was derived, and may prove that the credit of the invention is by no
means due to Louis the Barber!
I shall now make a few observations on the mineralogy of the rocks and buildings,
which may perhaps throw some additional light on the antiquity of the place.
The rocks are all granite composed of quartz, felspar, a small quantity of mica, and
some garnets; though I have some suspicion, from the superior hardness of what I call
mica, that it is in reality hornblende, and that the rock in fact is not granite but sienite.
The felspar seems to be sometimes compact, sometimes common, and it readily
disintegrate, as we find to be the case in the buildings of cutters cut out pieces of it with
great ease, and supply Madras and other places with quarry stones of all sizes. To split an
immense large mass into two pieces they have Mahavellyporam, and even in the quarries at
which they are at present at work; for we see that the pieces broken off and lying about are
much tarnished and different from the appearance of the recent stone.
On examining the surface of the rock we find it scaling off in large flakes, half an
inch thick, and this the more the nearer it is to the sea. The pagoda near the surf, for
example, is coming off not by piecemeal, but very rapidly indeed. When I saw it last, two
months and scarcely elapsed since the preceding monsoon, yet handfuls of sand and
silicious gravel could be collected from the neighbourhood of the stones. That this speedy
disintegration is peculiar to the rock we are speaking of is evident from this circumstance.
Some blocks of another kind of granite are met with here and there in the pagoda, but they
are quite fresh, having undergone no disintegration whatever. There is likewise a black
stone, of which all the lingums are made, probably hornblende which does not readily
undergo decomposition.
The granite of this place, as indeed is the case with granite in general, splits very
readily, as is evident from large masses of it found lying close together the nearest opposite
sides of which demonstrate by their form that they were once united. The stone-cutters cut
out pieces of it with great ease, and supply Madras and other places with quarry stones of
al sizes. To split an immense large mass into two pieces they have nothing to do but to
make square holes of about an inch in every direction and about the same distance from
each other, throughout the whole length of the stone, and to drive blunt wedges of the form
of the holes into them, striking upon them in succession, and in a few minutes the business
is done. The making of the hole seems the most difficult part of the business. They do it
with a kind of chisel and iron hammer. These, together with a pair of common bellows,
constitute their whole apparatus.
These people are probably the descendants of the workmen from the north country
mentioned above. And, if we are to judge from the many unfinished single stone pagodas
on which recent marks of the tool appear, they still amuse themselves with creating objects
for the admiration of posterity.
I had almost forgotten to mention that this rock does not seem to suffer so much
from the action of the sea, as from the atmosphere; for the stones washed by the sea are by
no means so much disintegrated as those upon dry land. They are smooth indeed like all
stones washed regularly by the tide but quite hard and solid. The same observation applies
to the figures sculptured on the walls of the Gopāram even those on the inner room of the
pagoda near the sea, which are usually moist. They appear not nearly so much injured by
time as those at a greater distance from the shore. The air near the sea seems to possess
more corroding power than that at some distance from it, owing probably to the particles
of common salt which it contains.
It has been observed by others, that the bottom part of the lowest range of figures
on the rock near the Gopāram is considerably sunk in the ground, not less than a foot or
more. This can be ascribed to nothing else than to the gravel or sand accumulated from
the decomposing rock above, and an eye the least accustomed to mineralogical objects will
easily distinguish in this gravel all the constituent parts of the rock.
It consequence of the uncommon facility with which this granite flakes off, we may
judge pretty well of the time that ha elapsed since the construction of the temples and
rhadams in this place suppose the formation of a flake a quarter of an inch thick required
100 years, to form which I conceive to be a very full allowance; on such a supposition 200
or 250 years is the most distant period that can be assigned for the cutting of the figures
and the formation of the pagodas, for hitherto that surface has not lost an inch.
It may be worth while to notice some blocks of a beautiful granite that are to be
found in the pagoda near the sea. It is composed of white felspar, quartz, and mica; the
mica is usually in the smallest proportion. It is quite fresh. I do not know from whence it
came, but I have seen lacks of the same kind of granite in a deserted pagoda near
Conjeveram.
TRACT XXII.
JOURNAL OF A TOUR FROM BENGALORE TO TRICHINOPOLY,
IN 1802.
DURING my stay in the country near Sira, in the latter months of last year, I had
be4en attacked by the jungle fever, an intermittent which seldom is subdued without a
change of climate. In milder cases this change need only be from one part of the country to
another, particularly from an inland province to the coast; but in the more violent and
inveterate, a voyage to China or Europe is often required. I received, on my application to
Government, permission to proceed to the coast; and being at liberty as to the particular
place, I chose for several reasons a tour through the Baramāl to Trichinopoly. I had never
been in that part of the country, which is so celebrated by the wars in the last century
between the English, French, and some Native Powers; as well as for its general surface
and its natural productions the accounts varied so much, that I was happy to have an
opportunity of satisfying my curiosity.
I left Bengalore on the 13th of January, a time of the year above all the most
agreeable for traveling in India. The weather is then cool, the sky serene, the country still
clad in colours of a lively hue, which in little more than a month give place to others of a
darker complexion, and to an atmosphere heated by a vertical sun, obscured often by
sultry clouds. I travelled to –day under a somewhat cloudy sky., towards Ryacotta in an
E.S.E. direction,, the ryots were still employed in reaping their harvest of horse gram,
which is the last on the fields in this part of Mysore.
The general aspect of the country is the same as about Bengalore. Gentle elevations
alternate with fertile valleys; the higher ground are generally uncultivated and covered
with a low jungle, which serves as a cover for hares, partridges, and rock pidgeons (a
species of grouse), and which in this season afford food for sheep, goats, and cattle of all
descriptions. The first ascent is laid out, in general, in fields for raghy, gardens, and topes
of fruit-trees, and the vallies are cultivated with rice, or, according to circumstances, with
sugar. The want of trees however, and palms on the higher grounds, which form, if not the
most extensive, certainly the most striking part of this country, give on the whole a barren
and often a bleak appearance. I arrived in the afternoon at Attapilly, a village eighteen
miles from Bengalore. I was in hopes of receiving accounts here of the gold mines which
were reported to be at no great distance from this place; but, as happens too often in India,
the persons to whom I applied either did not choose to impart their knowledge from
prudential motives, or they were actually ignorant of what existed at such an immense
distance as twenty or thirty miles from their homes. In heard enough however to
determine me to proceed to Kellamungulum, as a place likely to get better information.
January 14. After traveling for some time in a country similar to that of yesterday,
we came in sight of the Eastern Ghauts. The soil of the country changed for the worse, and
its aspect became blacker and wilder. Cultivation seems to be confined to the valleys and
to the grounds immediately round the villages, which on the whole, however, had a
tolerably good appearance. Near Kellamungulum, a village not far from some hills, the
ground became very jungly and barren, and the soil gravelly and stony. It belongs to the
district of Ruttungerry, one under the Company’s Ammāny, of which Mr. D. Cockburn is
the collector. The regulated prices of such necessaries as are required by travellers in
India, appeared to me remarkably reasonable. This object of a good police is, I believe,
more attended to in those provinces that have been added to the Company’s dominions
since the fall of Tippoo, and in Mysore, than in their ancient possessions; and is indeed far
more necessary here to prevent altercations and misunderstandings between the European
traveler and the natives, particularly as the later would not know how to obtain redress
should they conceive themselves aggrieved, and might probably take the law into their own
hands and cause extensive troubles. The tariff, or price of articles, in English and in the
country languages, which the village can furnish, is handed to every traveler as he arrives,
by a peon stationed init for the purpose, who himself is to produce the required articles,
and to receive payment for them. It happens certainly sometimes, that a fellow of that
description, elated with the dignity and power with which he feels himself invested,
becomes insolent; but this is an abuse not chargeable on the system: in general all parties
separate contended, the present of a fanam (two pence), or tow at must, settles all
differences that might have arisen.
The farther we advanced to the eastward, the more jungly and stony became the
country, and the poorer the appearance of the villages which we passed. This is the case in
all mountainous tracts in India, and in such we found ourselves to-day., about noon we
arrived at Hurrydrūg, a hill fort at the foot of which is a poor and almost deserted village. I
ascended the rock in the afternoon accompanied by a few peons that were stationed here in
charge of the fortifications, which in times of yore were esteemed very strong. Just when I
was at the summit, my attention was arrested by the warlike sound of the collary horn and
the tomtom, and on looking about I saw several bodies of armed men pass the village
without however in the least molesting it or my baggage. On inquiry I was told they were
rebels against Government, or rather against the collector of the revenues. I understood
further, to my great disappointment, that their place of rendezvous was Pungampilly, a
village within a few miles of the old mines of Suttergul, and which I had to pass on my way
to them. Undo these circumstances it would have been extremely hazardous to pursue my
design, for though it is in general by no means dangerous for a stranger unconnected with
the object of their revenge, particularly for a military officer, to pass through the midst of
such people, it has happened that results of an unpleasant nature have been offered. The
attempt would have proved fruitless at al event, as most villagers in the vicinity of those
places had left their houses and joined the rebels blamed the collector; and other ascribed
it to the intrigues of a Polygar who had stirred up the credulous multitude, which in these
cases is in general the true cause. For reasons already stated, I was not aft\raid to remain
during the night in this villages and I had a guard of Sepoys with me, with whom, if the
worst had happened, I could have defended myself in the fort; but I thought it prudent to
break up earlier than usual in the morning, and to push on for Ryacotta, a place of security
and where a military force was stationed.
January 16. I passed in my way thorough thick jungle, and between a number of
unconnected hills, to the range or assemblage of which that of Ryacotta belongs.
To my no small surprise I found on my arrival that in the earlier part of this day’s
journey I had passed through the very heart of the present troubles, which had become so
alarming that Mr. Cockburn the collector had been obliged to fly for security to this place,
as the malcontents had manifested a particular animosity against his person.
It is remarkable that this place is very healthy though on all sides surrounded by
jungle, and among a number of hills, and at no great distance from contiguous ranges. It
lies near the entrance into the Table Land of Mysore, and commands one of its principal
passes. It was, before the last war that terminated the Mussulman Dynasty in Mysore, a
frontier station of that power, and deemed a place of great strength. It is still a place of
some consequence, commanded by a colonel, and garrisoned by a detachment of troops.
A petta, or town of considerable importance for an Indian one, lies close to the lower
fort, which defends the only place from which the upper or the hill fort is accessible. In it
reside the European officers, the garrison, and a number of private families of the natives
of the country.
The day after my arrival here I ascended the hill, which is not above 800 feet in
perpendicular height, and not steep except at the gates of the hill fort from whence it rises
very suddenly and terminates in an almost naked rock.
The climate of this part of the country resembles that of Bengalore though it is not
quite so high above the level of the sea by from 5 to 600 feet; it is on the whole very
pleasant.
The rocks hereabout are, as far as I have seen them, all sienitic, similar to those
described in some former tracts. The hills are very interrupted in single points, which
however both south and north of this become more contiguous and form ranges. At no
great distance east of this are the higher ranges of the lower Baramāl , and south west
appear those of the higher.
The jungle with which the greatest part of this country is covered, and which comes
up to the very fort of Ryacotta, consists of the very same kind of shrubs as are common in
the eastern parts of Mysore, so that I made no acquisition for my botanical collections. It is
much infested by tigers, which made it dangerous even to go to any distance from the fort;
indeed these furious animals very often carry men and cattle off from the very environs of
the place. The monkies domineer on the hill and are remarkable for their impertinent
intrusion to the houses near their regions.
The death of the Rev. Mr. Gericke may, as I am told, be ascribed to the fright which
they occasioned him when he slept in a bungalore belonging to the commanding officer of
that station which is near the brow of the hill.
The soil immediately about Rayacotta in the lower ground appears to be very god,
as it produces not only the vegetables and fruits of this country, but such as have been
introduced from others, in great perfection. Peas, salad, cabbages, carrots, asparagus, &c.
are found here in all months and seasons of the year. Potatoes do not grow quite so well
here as at Bengalore and Nundydrug, where they are now almost generally cultivated. It is
not however quite clear to me whether they would not thrive here as well if the culture was
carefully attended to: at the former places they were first introduced in the gardens,
particularly of the Nundydrug hill, by Colonel Cuppage, and since 1800 by me among the
natives, whom was enabled by Government to supply with seed potatoes of the best kind
from the St. Helena stock, and to offer them a sale of their produce, which, however, they
soon found for themselves in all parts of the country where Europeans reside. Since that
time they have even supplied Madras, where they are preferred to those of Bengal, at
which place they seem to have degenerated. The Mussulmen and Hindoos, with the
exception perhaps of the Bramins, eat them with great eagerness, and seem to give them
the preference to their yams and sweet potatoes. It is not surprising that the Bramins
should not eat them, as there are other vegetables, particularly bulbs, from which they
abstain, as onions, turnips, and raddishes. Apples, peaches, and grapes come to great
perfection in the gardens of this place: the first are of the kind cultivated in the Bengalore
gardens, and were originally sent from Persia; they much resemble the nonpareil in taste
and appearance. The regular season of produce is February and the beginning of March,
but with a little management they may be had in all other seasons. They often grow as
bushes, but if properly pruned, grow pretty trees of the smaller size. The peaches are about
a month later than the apples, they are also very well flavoured, and grow as large as any
produced in England. They have been introduced from the Isle of France, whence they
were sent to the late Sultan, who like most Mussulmen, was fond of gardening: at present
they are chiefly propagated by cuttings, but grow equally well from the stones, which
usually require less than eighteen months from the time in which they are put into the
ground to that of yielding a large crop on a tree which in so short a time is grown upwards
of twelve feet high. The grapes produced here are not inferior in size and flavour to any
raised in the hot-houses in England. It is a pity indeed that no attempt has been made to
cultivate the vine on a more extensive scale, as it grows so well in all parts of the country
where it has been attended to. At Pondicherry it comes to great perfection, and grapes in
the season are abundant; in Aurangabad in the higher parts of the Dekan, they are sold as
other fruits of the country in the public bazaar; at Seringapatam and here they are by no
means scarce.
The common wood strawberry, which was introduced by the Right Hon. Lady
Powis when Governess at Madras, grows in great luxuriance and of delightful flavour.
Many other fruit-trees of Europe, as the cherry, pear, plum, chesnut, walnut, olive, would,
I am persuaded, thrive with equal luxuriance in Mysore; and ere long I am in hopes the
noble personages interested in the welfare of India will succeed in their generous
endeavours of securing these comforts to their countrymen, than which scarcely any thing
awakens a more lively sense of the amor patria, and the enthusiastic desire of returning to
it and to the friends of their youth.
January 18. I left Ryacotta again, proceeding southward through a wild jungly
country between rages of high mountains; it became however as we advanced soon open
again, and we found ourselves in a well cultivated district, that abounded with tanks, rice
fields, and villages. The rice was about a span high; the soil had also changed for the better,
was often black; it was nowhere so stony and gravelly as near Ryacotta and the earlier part
of our day’s journey. The stones which lay about were mostly sienitic, but contained more
felspar, hornblende, and pistazite than quartz. Hereabout and more north of Ryacotta, I
found in the road pebbles of staurolite, which I could not discover in the solid rock near
those places from which however they must of necessity have been derived. We put up for
the rest of the day at Palicol, a fine large village built in the style of those in the Carnatic,
we saw here the first palmeyras again, which in Mysore are not to be found. Cocoanut
gardens made also their appearance near the villages.
January 19. The ranges of hills as we proceed retreat on both sides, and leave a
broad well-cultivated valley, in which we often fell in with black cotton ground and marly
stones. We passed through a number of good villages, and staid at Darmapore, the largest,
in which Captain Read, formerly the Collector of the district, has a bungalore: his memory
is still respected, as he did ample justice not only to his employers, but also to the natives of
the country. Tee was a umber of native servants of the revenue department here, to whom I
applied for milk and sheep for myself and servants; but, as happens frequently, those
gentlemen wished to impress me with a due sense of their authority and dignity, and
suffered me to go without it.
January 20. We traveled to-day along a range of hills for the first ten miles in a well
cultivated country in which dry grain were chiefly attended to; but all at once it became
jungly and barren. I found here a detachment of the 1sat Battalion of the 18th Regiment of
Native Infantry, with the officers of which, Captain Muirhead and Lieutenant Hay, I was
well acquainted, and now spent a few hours with them. In the evening 1 left them again and
descended through theTapore Pass into the Lower Baramāl ; this pass is rather long, but
no where so abruptly steep as that of Peddanaigdurgam; it is the one through which the
English armies in former time have entered Mysore, and from which the Mysore forces
have often invaded the Carnatic. During the night I staid in the choultry, at the foot of the
pass, which is by no means good or commodious.
January 21. The road from the choultry, though it leads through a wild stony
country, is broad and good, and has avenues of trees which by Colonel Munro have been
planted throughout the Baramal leading to the principal places. I need not observe that
they will prove a great comfort to the weary traveler, but cannot help expressing the wish
that his example may be followed in other parts of the country. In the Tanjore country are
many avenues that have been planted by the ancient sovereigns of that country, which to
this time make traveling in it so pleasant. I passed to day a river with running water, and
staid during the night at Vommelūr, a fine large village.
January 22. Rose rather early and came at day-break to a high ground which ran
from east to west towards the high range of hills from which we had descended. I have lost
the specimen of the rock that constituted the forementioned low ridge: in my
memorandums I find it was intersected by calcareous tuff, and contained in small nests a
semipellucid greenstone, which, in its decomposed state in which it principally occurred
crumbled into a powder which is carbonated magnesia. The sound stone is about the
hardness of serpentine, striated, and looks not unlike the famous image stone in China,
which however is said not to contain magnesia as a constituent. The soil hereabout is
chiefly a black cotton ground. Foliated hornblende appears often in rocks above it. The
country is charmingly cultivated.
Salem, to which we now came, is a large, populous, and beautiful village, in which
there are many handsome choultries. The Company have here a factory for the purchase
of coarse cotton goods of the same kind as their northern punjums, which are so much
esteemed and in great demand in the European market. The cloth is not so dear here as in
the northern Circars, but it is not so strong. I presume it is pretty well known that a
punjum is a certain number of threads that run lengthways through a piece of cloth; that
of course a piece of twelve punjums must have twelve times the number of threads which
constitute one, and that twenty-four punjums in the same breadth must have twice the
number of threads as those of twelve punjums. Here two punjums are designated by first
call, so that twelve punjums of cloth is called six call, and so on.
Mr. Carpenter, the Resident of this factory, received me in the politest manner, and
his hospitality detained me a day longer than I at first intended to remain. I wished much
to go to a high mountain which lies S.W. of the place, and is reckoned the highest in the
Baramāl, but found that it would cost me several days, though it appeared so near, and not
above 2000 feet high; but so much time I could not spare. There are several villages on it I
understand, and a kind of table land.
Saltpeter is very cheap here, being sold at the rate of nine rupees for 2265lbs. In the
bazaar.
The country is chiefly cultivated with jonna and rice: of the former they get two
crops in the year from the same field, which shows that the little monsoon in April, when
the first crop Is sown, must be sufficiently strong to prepare the strong cotton soil for the
nurture of the grain, which in the more northern country I have e no where found to be the
case. The second crop is sown, as in most other places on the coast, in September, before
the setting in of the great monsoon. The first seems to be the principal one, and the species
of jonna is the white variety which is expected to produce thirty-two fold; the second is
called red, and yields only twenty-four fold. After the two crops are reaped, sennaga (Cicer
arietinum) is sown on the same ground, so that a field in this part of the country actually
produces three times in the course of a year. A great deal of cotton is grown in this and the
adjoining districts, particularly on Coimbatore. There are also two species, the white and
the brown; the former is an annual plant, the latter biennial and even triennial. The waster
is very often brackish in this district.
January 24. I proceeded on my tour towards Malūr, a village eight miles from
Salem, to which the roads were exceedingly good, and as all in the Baramūl, broad and
commodious; the country between the hills is well cultivated.
January 25. On leaving Malūr early this morning before sun-rise we heard on all
sides the creaking tones of the sugar mills, which sounded much like the singing of a devout
congregation at some distance, and awakened idea which a machine of that kind would
appear very unlikely to call forth. The stones which I found to-day were granite in which
the felspar was red and in great proportion to the other ingredients. Calcareous tuff
accompanied as usual the black cotton ground and salt works of the kind as noticed in my
former Tracts were not uncommon. The country during the latter part of this day’s
journey fell off in point of cultivation from what it was in the earlier. I staid during the
night in a choultry near Chittūr.
January 26. We traveled on our way to Namcull chiefly on elevated ground, and
had on our left ranges of high hills. Namcull, like most fortified hills, is detached from the
rest of the range to which it probably belongs. A pretty large town is at the foot of it. The
hill of itself is steep but not high; its rock is sienitic, in which white quartz and felspar
prevail: in some places it contains garnets in hornblende and a greenstone which possesses
the characters of felspar and is composed of the same constituents; the latter compound
seemed to prevail, particularly in the lower country, in which the rocks that appeared near
and in the road to-day consisted chiefly of it. The sand in the nullas and in some part of
the road was mostly an aggregate of small garnets and hornblende. We staid but a short
time during the hottest part of the day at Namcull, and proceeded afterwards to
Malleapetta, where we crossed some small rivulets which had running water and reached
in the evening Vadagapetta, where we staid during the night. At the former place the
cultivation of rice begins again, for which they draw the water from the channels with
pocotes, and at the latter place we found a great number of plantain gardens.
January 27. Our journey to Totteam was to-day again on high uncultivated and
stony ground; and near this place the avenues which had all along lined the roads
discontinued, which we took as a sure sign (as was really the case) that we had left the
Baramāl and entered the Carnatic. The soil about this place is mostly black, and saltpeter
is produced in the village in great abundance. The cultivation about this place is chiefly
confined to that of rice, as the country can be watered from the channels of the Cavery, on
the banks of which river we traveled for the rest of the day. We passed here often through
very high grass, which came up and sometimes overtopped the horse’s back and the rider,
and after a very long march we arrived in the evening at Musery. The villages on the banks
of the Cavery are very thickly strewed with plantations of cocoanut, plantains, and other
fruit-trees., the country in general is one of the best cultivated on this coast. The soil we
had passed to-day was mostly of the black kind, and the stones that lay scantily about were
fragments of quartz and granite. I have observed that black soil, with it accompanying
calcareous strata of marl and tuff, rest in common on granite, indicated by rocks of this
nature appearing above its surface; that on the other hand a red soil prevails where sienite
forms the apparent groundwork. I conclude from this that granite is at the bottom of all,
and sienite is only superimposed; for the latter appears only in the elevated or higher parts
of the country, and the former in the lowest, which is generally covered with alluvial strata.
January 28. The channels or canals, which water the adjacent country on both sides
of the Cavery, have been constructed often with great expense, the sluices belonging to
them being built with solid masonry. The villages are often mean and poor in appearance,
a sign that the inhabitants work more for their masters than their own benefit. There are
often three crops of rice produced on the same field, a fertility of which scarcely any other
country in India can boast: this however can only be done when the cultivator confines
himself t the coarsest kind, which from the time it is planted to that in which it can be
reaped requires only seven weeks; the middling sort takes about four months, and the
finest nearly six months before it can be reaped.
January 29. I crossed the Cavery to-day very early in the morning before –sun-rise,
when I could observe nothing but that the water was very low. It is the most useful river in
the peninsula; for in Mysore near Seringapatam, it fertilizes the country, and the Carnatic
owes the former importance and splendor of its princes to the waters which this river
yearly distributes in it provinces. Its beds as long as it is above the Ghāts are stone, and it s
banks no where deep. Not far W. from Ryocotta it precipitates itself abruptly, and forms a
number of beautiful cataracts. After it has entered the Carnatic it slides quietly along, and
distributes its blessings as it proceeds towards the sea. It depends for the first and principal
supply of water in the month of May on the rains that fall in the western Ghāts, or on the
Malabar mountains on which it takes its rise. Its tributary streams collect the water of the
eastern and southern parts of the Mysore in June and July, and in the later part of the year
it is again filled by the monsoon rains of this eastern coast of the peninsula. The coming of
the “fresh water from the country,” as it is called, is every where hailed and celebrated
with festivities by the natives of the Carnatic, who worship it as on e of the greatest of the
most benignant deities.
I arrived early this day at Trichinopoly, and put up with my friend the Captain,
now Colonel G. Lang, who commanded a Battalion of Native Infantry, with the
determination of staying some time with him, which however was prevented from doing; I
had however time enough to see what was remarkable in and near the place.
To speak of its history and former importance would be presumptuous in me, but a
few words of what it is at present will not be uninteresting. It is still one of the principal
military stations under the Government of Fort St. George, and the head-quarters of the
officer commanding the southern division of the army. The cantonment of troops consists
of a Regiment of His Majesty’s Infantry, at that time the 12th Regiment; a Regiment of the
Hon. Company’s Native Cavary, and one or two of their Battalions of Infantry, with
detachments of European and Native Artillery. The fortification is now quite neglected
and it appears surprising that it could have been ever of any importance. The hill, which
probably attracted the first founders of the settlement, is an elevated rock of no great
height: I think not much above 600 feet from the foot of it to its greatest summit. On its
northern and eastern side is the pagoda which makes so eminent a figure in the view, which
as the best of any I have seen, I thought my readers would be pleased to find in this work; *
I have been favoured with it by Dr. Wilkins, the Superintendant of the Hon. Company’s
Museum and Library at the India House, where the original is deposited. The rock is of
the common sienite of the Carnatic, and of no beauty whatever in its composition. The flat
country in which it raises its head is altogether alluvial, and to a great extent on al sides low
and even.
I visited during my stay here the famous pagoda of Striringam, which during the
siege of Trichinopoly was the principal station of the French army. It has seven high walls,
within the range of which live a great number of Bramin families who exist on the revenues
of the temple, or on the misplaced charity of its pious visitors. Pillars of immense size
support the gateways and the building erected on it. They are all of sienite composed of
quartz, felspar, garnets, hornblende, and mica, singly, often aggregated in spots and
stripes. It is astonishing indeed how people with so few mechanical means as the natives of
India possess, should have erected such buildings, and transported such immense masses;
for on the spot where they are now, and its vicinity, there is no vestige to show that they
have been found. The present race is so degenerated as firmly to believe that none but
supernatural beings could have effected such prodigies.
When they at present attempt to set up a pillar of any height, as there is always one
before every pagoda (garuta stampam), they raise a mound of earth of the height of the
pillar, and fill up the space behind, on which they roll it by main force, so that at last it
stands upright and firm in the middle of an artificial hill which they carefully afterwards
have to remove, supporting the pillar, and particularly strengthening it by a pedestal as
occasion requires.
Trichinopoly is also a principal establishment of the Civil Power of Government, as
it is the station of the Southern Judicial Courts of Circuit, in which three of the Circuit
Judges reside when they are not on the quarterly visitation of the subordinate Zillahs.
During their presence they form a Court of Appeal, in the first instance, from the Zillahs in
all cases of civil law, while in their circuit, cases only of a criminal kind come before them.
This establishment is of all others of the greatest importance to the country and its
inhabitants, whatever may be thought or said of the Zillahs; as these later only relate to
property, which often can be guarded or acquired only by possessors of great means, which
may lead often to very bad consequences; while the former guards the personal safety of
the peaceable subject of Government and its own stability. In former times robberies and
murders were committed often with impunity, and hence increased to an alarming degree;
which now are followed by immediate and legal punishment, and become scarcer every
day.
The Tamuls, or Malabars as they are often called, are, like al other Hindoos, an
industrious gentle set of people, who are not given to any flagrant excesses of any kind, who
are in general strenuous idolaters, and mostly worshipers of Siwen. They have the failings
of the other Indians; and of those we have spoken enough in another place. To judge from
their features and appearance, they seem to be a distinct race from the Telingas who
inhabit the valleys of the Baramul and the Palliams father north, as also the whole country
beyond the Penna to Ganjam, and the whole of Golconda and Telingana inland. Their
faces are flatter, the forehead shorter and more depressed than that of the Telingas, they
are shorter also and much darker in complexion. Their extremities are not so well formed;
their feet particularly are broader, and the hollow part is often filled up with muscle or fat,
which gives them an unseemly appearance. Their women also are not so elegantly formed
as those of the Telingas, nor are they so decently dressed, as they are often seen in the
country quite naked to the loins. The young ones among them stain their faces, arms, and
feet with turmeric oftener than the other, and extend their ear-laps with rolls of paper so
that they often hand down to the very shoulders.
In this part of the country the Christian religion has made some progress,
particularly about Tanjore, where the late Rev. Mr. Swartz and other Divines of the
Mission of the Established Church of England have in former times spared no exertions
which zeal could prompt and prudence devise, and where at present their successors the
Rev. Messrs. Pole and Kohlhoff do not labour in vain. Want of assistants and fellow-
labourers confines their attention now chiefly to the flocks which have been collected, and
to the schools to which all classes of natives have admittance. The Christians of this mission
are not deprived of their cast: they on the contrary sometimes marry from among those
Gentiles who yet profess the religion of their fathers, and who on this occurrence adopt that
of Christ with the perfect consent of their relatives. I am myself witness of a connivance of
the kind that happened about twenty years ago at Tranquebar, where a Christian of this
mission, Gniāna Pragāsam, the interpreter of the Danish Government, a man of a
respectable cast, married the daughter of a Hindoo at Madras, who with his family came
and lived with the new couple for some time, and remained bigoted idolaters. I have since
understood that marriages of this kind are by no means uncommon.
Much has been said of the rice Christains, as those were called who received a small
allowance of food when they were instructed in the tenets of the Christian religion during a
famine, some of whom recanted or returned to their families and their gods after it was
over. In my opinion this is proof positive that the adoption of the Christian religion in itself
is not followed by the privation of their cast or their situation in political society it shows,
on the contrary, the laxness of Hindooism, which readmits apostates either quite unnoticed
or after a trifling penance. Loss of cast incurred by some crimes is on the contrary
irrecoverable.
The climate in this part of the Carnatic is wholesome, and not so burning hot as its
situation might give reason to expect. The extensive sheets of water which at all times of
the year cover the country where rice is cultivated produce such evaporation as keeps the
ambient air to a great degree cool and agreeable, whilst the temperature is yet so high as to
dissipate and render them innoxious, which in climes less ardent, as in Spain where rice is
cultivated, would prove the source of unhealthiness to its inhabitants.
TRACT XXIII.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GLASS WORKS AT MATOD.
THE glass works that I have seen in India are at Motod, among the hills south-west
of Chittledroog, and in the ceded districts; but this last is smaller. In confine my
observations to the first of these.
The materials used in this manufacture are, 1. Soda. 2. Quartz or compact
ironstone. S. Compact specular iron ore. 4. Copper.
1. The soda is mixed with a notable proportion of common salt. It is obtained from a
sandy earth found in many places along the coast on the surface of the ground, and from its
use is commonly called washerman’s earth. At some places hereabout the salt is extracted
from that earth by elixiviation, and the lixivium evaporated buy fire, and sold in the
bazaars under the name of sobbu. For the purpose of making glass it is gained in the
following manner:-*
Some pits about a foot and a half deep are filled with salt earth, and water is poured
upon it. The same portion of water is poured successively upon different portions of salt
earth till it is conceived to be sufficiently impregnated with saline matter, which is judged
of by its brown colour. This water is then worked into a pultaceous mass with cow dung,
and spread upon a straw mat about an inch thick, and dried in the sun. another layer
prepared in the same way is applied the next day, and for twelve successive days it is kept
moist by the addition of fresh portions of lixivium of soda. The large cake is ten divided
into smaller pieces, which, when quite dry, are piled up into a heap and burnt the fine
ashes which are found along with the more solid pieces are kept separate. The latter are
reduced to powder, stored up, and called soudu sāram (essence of soda); because they
contain the largest quantity of soda.
2. Quartz (in the language of Canara, bellakallu). What is used here is a little
ironshot.
3. Gorykallu. This is an iron ore that comes nearest to the compact brown ironstone
of Kirwan(hydrate of iron).
4. Kimmidu kallu (iron glance). Specular iron ore of Kirwan; red oxide of iron, as
appears from the experiments of Bucholz; though as the ore in question was attracted by
the magnet, I consider it as rather a mixture of black and red oxides of iron than a pure
specular iron ore. It is found in sufficient quantities after heavy rains in a nullah near a
village called Kadavigada, in the Budela district. The nullah comes from the north side of a
hill which probably contains the ore in rocks. This ore is reckoned best when firm and
sound. If red ochre appear in the fracture, the specimen is esteemed inferior to the best
kind, in the proportion of two to three. And accordingly a greater quantity of it is
considered as necessary in the manufacture of glass.
From these few materials the four following kinds of glass are made:- 1. Bīza or
mother glass. It is a soft, imperfect, porous glass; and is used only as a substratum or basis
to the other kinds of glass made here. 2. Red glass., 3. Green glass. 4. Black glass.
Bīza is made of the following ingredients:-
1.The ashes, which remain when the soda is made, and which, as was mentioned
before, are kept apart. If these ashes do not contain many grains of salt, five parts of them
are taken but if they are mixed with much salt, three parts are deemed sufficient.
2. Pounded quartz, or bellakallu, one part. These two ingredients are separately
pounded and then mixed together, put into clay pots and kept in the heated furnace for
eight days. To see whether glass be formed, an iron hook fastened to a long bamboo is
dipped into a pot containing the glass materials. If the mass adhering to it be of the
consistence of wax, the operation is finished. If not another day’s heat is given.
Red Glass.
It is of a hyacinthine colour, penetrated with large round white spots. It is
composed of
Bīza …………………………… 7 parts.
Soda, or soudu Sāram………. 21
Kimmidu kallu……………… 10
38
All the ingredients are firs separately reduced to an impalpable powder, and then
mixed. It requires first tree days of slow heat, and then seven days of the strongest fire that
can b given.
If more than the stated quantity of kimmidu be taken, the glass acquires a black
colouor; if less, it assumes a lighter shade of ed.
Green Glass.
This glass is composed of the following ingredients:-
Soda, or soudu Sāram………… 21 parts.
Bīza…………………………….. 7
Kimmidu kallu…………………. 0 6/7
Copper filings…………………… 0 6/7
29 5/7
This glass has a dark emerald green colour with opaque spots.
Black Glass
This glass is made of the following ingredients:-
Soudu sāram……………….. 3 parts.
Bīza ………………………… 1
4
Four days moderate heat is enough for obtaining it. The charcoal of the soudu
sāram probably gives it the black colour; as it will lose it if the fire be too long continued or
too strong. This glass is the least esteemed of all. It is quite opaque and has a close
resemblance to enamel.
The common salt contained in the soda separates itself from the other ingredients,
and is found covering the glass or bīza in a firm crust of one inch or more in thickness. It is
very fine and white, and used like sea salt.
The only use to which these different kinds of glass are applied is the manufacture
of bracelets, with which the poorest as well as the richest of the Hindoo women (the widows
alone excepted) ornament their arms.
TRACT XXIV.
ACCOUNT OF THE METHOD OF MAKING STEEL IN THE
MYSORE COUNTRY.
THE place where I first saw steel manufactured in this country is a small village
among he hills, south-west of Chittledroog, in the Talem purgunna. The iron from which it
is made comes from Malsinganhally, a village at a small distance from the former. The
preference given to the product of that work seems, however, owing only to its vicinity, as
iron is made from the same kind of ore at fifteen other places in this district, and exactly in
the same manner; the place where the ore is found is a hill near Kalwarangapamapetta
farm, whence it is conveyed on asses to the different iron furnaces in this district.
Near the furnaces I found it in small tabular pieces of a brown ochrey colour, with
shining particles scantily interspersed, nearly friable, and of an earthy fracture. It is not
magnetic, and appears to me either decomposed hornblende, or iron glance, which is very
common in this country. It yields about 0.269 of metal.
The process of making iron commences with filling the furnace with charcoal. After
it is heated, which requires an hour, a basket of ore, containing about 331b. reduced to
pieces of the size of a pea, is put into the funnel and covered with charcoal; an hour
afterwards a similar basketful of ore is put in, and this addition repeated three times at the
stated intervals: care being taken that it is always covered with charcoal, and the furnace
supplied with a sufficient quantity of this article. About an hour after the last
replenishment the process is finished, which lasts altogether from five to six hours.
It must be mentioned also that after the third addition of ore, a small hole is made at
the lowest extremity of the temporary furnace, to let out the dross.
After the charcoal has been consumed, the temporary part of the furnace is pulled
down, and the iron collected at the bottom of it is taken out with a long forceps, carried to a
small distance, and beaten with large wooden clubs. During this operation a great quantity
of scoriæ are seen running from the porous mass of iron.
When the red heat is nearly over, it is cut into three pieces. In this state it is very
porous, and worse in appearance than any crude iron of European manufacture.
To prepare it for the market, it is several times heated to whiteness, cut into thirteen
pieces of about 2 1b. each, and hammered into cylindrical pieces of eight inches in length.
It is in this state a good soft iron, answering all purposes for which it is wanted in
cultivation and building. The mānd of this iron (27 1b.) is sold for about two rupees.
The people engaged in this work are of an emaciated sickly appearance, forming a
striking contrast with the other inhabitants of this part of the country. This I have
observed at all other iron works on the coast, but am not able to account for the
circumstance.
In order to convert the iron into steel each piece is cut into three parts, making fifty-
two in the whole, each of which is put into a crucible, together with a handful of the dried
branches of tangedu (cassia auriculata), and another of fresh leaves of vonangady
(convolvulus laurifolia). The mouth of the crucible is then closely shut with a handful of red
mud, and the whole arranged in circular order, with their bottoms turned toward the
center in a hole made on the ground for the purpose. the whole is then filled up with
charcoal, and large bellows are kept blowing for six hours, by which time the operation is
finished. The crucibles are then removed from the furnace, ranged in rows on moistened
mud, and water is thrown on them whilst yet hot. The steel is found in conical pieces at the
bottom of the crucibles, the form of which it has taken. The upper or broader surfaces
often striated from the centre to the circumference.
In some crucibles half of the iron only is converted into steel, and others are found
empty, the smelted metal having run through a crack in the crucible, and is deemed
useless.
I could not discover any slag at the top of the metal, although it had lost about one-
fifth of its original weight.
These conical pieces are sold at the price of fifteen gold fanams the mānd, about ten
shillings and eight-pence for 27 1b. Sometimes they are heated again and hammered into
small bars of four or five inches long.
It is probably not quite indifferent what crucibles are used in this operation: at all
events they must be able to stand a strong fire. The loam employed for these crucibles is of
a brown rd colour, of an earthy appearance ad crumbles between the finger; mixed with
white sand and some shining particles: it has no earthy smell when breathed upon, nor
effervesces with acids.
From this the finer particles used for crucibles are separated by water, which keeps
them suspended for some time, during which it is drawn off and left to deposite them.
The dried sediment of many of these washings is compact, has a liver brown colour,
with some shining particles; of the consistence of chalk; a conchoidal fracture, feels soft
and scapy, and takes a polish from the nail. It makes a pretty good brown paint. Of this
the crucibles are made, by moistening it and mixing it with the husks of rice. It is then
dried in the open air.
The stone used in the construction of the fire-places of the iron and steel furnaces is
called ballapam by the natives; a name applied to all stones of the magnesian order, which
have a soapy and greasy feel, and little hardness. Here it is a potstone of a leek green
colour, easily scraped with the nail into a greenish white powder, longitudinal fracture
inclining to the even, with abrupt irregular rugosities, faintly striated, cross fracture,
irregularly slaty, foliated, lustre silky, verging to the semi-metallic; specific gravity 2.782 to
2.802, the thermometer being 810 ; opake; exposed to the air its surface is corroded, the
colour changes into red, kit easily crumbles to pieces, and its appearance becomes more
slaty.
Along with it is found asbestinite of a light green colour. The fracture of the mass
undulating; it is composed of needle and arrow-formed crystals, confusedly aggregated; the
former are often scopiform. It has a harsh feel, cannot be scraped with the nail, but easily
with the knife into a white powder lustre glassy, translucent; specific gravity 2.894.
The rock of the mountains on which these stones are found consists chiefly of the
following kind of stone:- In its sound state it is in the gross slaty, longitudinal fracture,
undulating or even, cross fracture hackly. External colour a silvery green, and where
decomposing red; internal grayish green, with many silvery shining particles. External
lustre (where not red) silky verging to the semi-metallic; hard; gives fire with steel; specific
gravity 2.64; thermometer 810. It is much given to decomposition, becomes then softer, but
does not lose its shining greenish colour, though it is evidently mixed with a great quantity
of red; sticks a little to the tongue, cross fracture earthy, slaty. From the total
decomposition of this stone is derived, I think, the red loam of which the crucibles are
made, which in the wet season is washed down on the plain.
Another place where iron and steel is manufactured, and where I attended the
process, is Kākerahally, a small village on the road from Bengalore to Seringapatam. The
iron ore used there is the magnetic iron sand common all over the coast, and even found on
the sea beach near Madras. The furnace used there, and the process of smelting iron, is
similar to that described on former occasions.
Before the iron is made into steel it is heated, hammered, and reduced into pieces of
eight inches length, and two inches breadth, and half an inch in thickness. It is then still so
brittle that it breaks under the hammer. Its grain is coarse and white. Twenty –eight
rupees’ weight of it is put into a crucible, and upon it a handful of the dried branches of
cassia auriculata. This is covered with the green leaves of the convolvulus laurifolius
(tallāku), and the opening of the crucible is closed with a handful of loam.
The furnace consists of a hole in the ground about 1½ foot deep; it is one foot broad
where widest, and ¾ foot at the opening. This hole is filled with charcoal, and in and about
the opening of it seventeen crucibles are placed; these are covered with a heap of charcoal,
and bellows are kept playing on it until the contents of the crucibles are liquefied, which is
known by its perceptible fluctuation when taken out for the purpose of trying it.
The operation seldom lasts longer than three hours; and is usually made four times
in the course of the day, and three times in the night.
The loss in twenty-four rupees is only one or 1½ rupee weight and less. The steel is
fond in conical pieces striated at the broader surface. When it has run accidentally
through a crack in the crucible, it is smelted again, and sold to the goldsmiths, who use it in
making fireworks.
One hundred pieces, each weighing about twenty-eight or twenty-nine rupees, are
sold for four Cantaray pagodas, i.e. fifteen pounds; cost about seven shillings.
As it seems indifferent what kind of iron is used for making this steel, a
manufacture of it, if deemed expedient, might be established near Madras, or any other
shipping place.
The principal point of making steel by fusion seems to consist in the exclusion of
atmospheric air from the crucible, and the use of fresh vegetables instead of charcoal, by
which means, it is probable, a higher temperature is obtained than could easily be
procured by the use of common charcoal. Hence the iron is more certainly fused, and at a
smaller expense. The crucibles are made here if a stiff loam mixed with the burnt husks of
rice.
The grain of the steel is much finer than that of the ore; but there still appears spots
which are not well fused.
I fancied that the iron manufactured here was a kind of natural steel; but a drop of
diluted nitric acid left a whitish green spot, a sign, according to Kinman, that it is iron. On
the steel of this place a brownish black was produced.
The specific gravity of the finest steel is 7.852; but I found the product her only
7.664.
Cassia auriculata (tanghedu of the Telinga )is one of the most common shrubs on
the coast; but grows most luxuriantly on black soil. It is used in medicine, but more for
tanning.
The extract, which it yields in great abundance and most readily, and which I
recommended as a tanning material in lieu of terra Japonica, was rejected at first as useless
by persons engaged practically in this manufacture at Calcutta; but since used by the very
same persons in the Madras tanning, which has been established. It is rather scarce about
Bengalore, and by no means luxuriant. It agrees with the Linnean description in all but the
leaves, which are here from five to seven feathered.
The Convolvulus laurifolia, is a new species that contains some milk; it grows in
most parts of Mysore and many other inland countries. I do not think it is very material for
the manufacture of steel, except that it furnishes uncharged vegetable substance.
Since my arrival in England I have endeavoured to obtain information of what is
known here of Indian steel, and of the result of experiments which have been made with it;
and I am happy in being permitted to lay before y readers a letter from Mr. Stodart, an
eminent instrument-maker, to whom I was recommended for the purpose by Dr. Wilkins,
which equally proves the importance of the article, and the candour and ingenuity of the
writer. The Letter is as follows:-
“AGREEABLE to your request, I herewith transmit to you a few remarks on the
wootz, or Indian steel. I give them as the results of my own practice and experience.
“Wootz, in the state in which it is brought from India, is, in my opinion, not
perfectly adapted for the purpose of fine cutlery. The mass of metal is unequal, and the
cause of inequality is evidently imperfect fusion: hence the necessity of repeating this
operation by a second and very complete fusion. I have succeeded in equalizing wootz,
and I now have it in a very pure and perfect state, and in the shape of bars like our English
cast steel. If one of these is broke by as blow of a hammer it will exhibit a fracture that
indicates steel of a superior quality and high value, and is excellently adapted for the
purpose of fine cutlery, and particularly for all edge instruments used for surgical
purposes.
“A very considerable degree of care and attention is required on the part of the
workmen employed on wootz; the metal must on no account be over heated, either in
forging or hardening,; the fire ought to be charcoal or good coke.
“The art of hardening and tempering steel is admitted, by all who have attended to
the subject, to be of vast importance; the excellence of the instrument depending in a great
measure on the judgment and care with which this is performed. I find the wootz to be
extremely well hardened when heated to a cherry-red colour in a bed of charcoal-dust, and
quenched in water cooled down to about the freezing point. In the process of tempering, a
bath of the well known fusible mixture of lead, tin, and bismuth, may be used with
advantage; linseed-oil will also answer the purpose, or, indeed, any fluid whose boiling
point is not below 600 degrees. The temper is to be ascertained by a thermometer, without
any regard to the colours produced by oxidation.
“I t is worthy of notice, that an instrument of wootz will require to be tempered
from 40 to 50 degrees above that of cast steel. For example, if a knife of cast steel is
tempered when the mercury in the thermometer has risen to 450, one of wootz will require
it to be 490; the latter will then prove to be the best of the two, provided always that both
have been treated by the workman with equal judgment and care.
“Upon the whole, the wootz of India promises to be of importance to the
manufactures of this country. It is admitted, by the almost universal consent of intelligent
workmen, that our English steel is worse in quality than it was some thirty or forty years
ago. This is certainly not what one would expect in the present improved state of chemical
science; but so it actually is. The trouble and expense of submitting wootz to a second
fusion will, I fear, militate against its more general introduction. If the steel makers of
India were made acquainted with a more perfect method of fusing the metal, and taught to
form it into bars by the tilt hammers, it might then be delivered here at a price not much
exceeding that of cast steel. Whether this is worth the consideration of the Honourable
Directors of the Company is not for me to judge. I am of opinion it would prove a source of
considerable revenue to the country. I have at this time a liberal supply of wootz, and I
intend to use it for many purposes. If a better steel is offered me, I will gladly attend to it;
but the steel of India is decidedly the best I have yet met with.
“It is eighteen years since I was favoured with the first cake of wootz (for so it is
called) by the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Banks, to whom, I think, we are indebted for
its introduction, and to whom, as to the friend of science and the arts, I shall always be
happy to acknowledge my obligation. From this cake I at that time formed some few very
valuable little instruments, but not without considerable difficulty; some parts of the cake
being scarcely malleable, and the whole of the mass very unequal, owing, I have no doubt,
to imperfect fusion.”